Name and historical setting
Muḥyī al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī Ibn al-ʿArabī al-Ḥātimī al-Ṭāʾī, known as the Greatest Master, was born in Murcia in 560 AH/1165 and died in Damascus in 638 AH/1240. His life connected al-Andalus, the Maghreb and the eastern Islamic world during substantial political and intellectual change. His writings bring together Qurʾanic interpretation, hadith, spiritual education, poetry, and questions about humanity, the cosmos and knowledge.
A life traced through cities and books
His family moved to Seville during his childhood. There he developed relationships with teachers and scholars, followed by repeated journeys to Morocco and Tunis. He later travelled east to Mecca. Mecca is associated with the beginning of the Futūḥāt and the setting of the Tarjumān al-ashwāq; Damascus with his final years of writing, revision and teaching. The timeline keeps these stages distinct.
Reading the evidence
His autobiographical remarks, companions’ reports, manuscript documents and later studies supply different kinds of evidence. Visions belong to his own account of spiritual experience and should be identified as such, rather than treated automatically as independent documentation. Mohamed Haj Yousef’s Shams al-Maghrib supplies extensive context. The following pages connect that biography to the works.
Sources and further reading
The source language appears beside each link. External books and sources may remain in their original languages.