Ibn Arabi; his biography and thought

More than twenty years ago, specifically in 1989, while I was residing intermittently in Paris, my friend Claude Addas gave me her book on the life and thought of Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi. I eagerly picked it up, my mind racing with thoughts revealing its great scholarly value in the specialized field of Sufism, and even humanity. The author is a descendant of a family passionate about and knowledgeable about the Grand Sheikh Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi, and she herself grew up imbued with this love and openness to this knowledge. When her diligence led her to graduate studies, she chose the Grand Sheikh as the subject of her doctoral dissertation. This book, through which she contributed to the advancement of Akbari studies, was the basis for her contribution to the advancement of Akbari studies. How could it not be, when it is the product of a researcher distinguished by her academic rigor intertwined with precision, deliberation, endurance, and patience. She read most of the great Sheikh's vast output, both printed and handwritten, and then set about reconstructing his biography within its human and intellectual framework, through his own texts. This book narrates the biography of a person who rose with his existence from the realm of time and place, while bearing their conditions, to the broad human horizon... He became the possessor of a human identity: one in itself, multiplied by its aspects and orientations, and by the layers extending from it to everything and everyone. Consequently, he became capable of comprehensive communication with his human and natural surroundings.