Love in the Teachings of Ibn ʿArabī

Love in the Teachings of Ibn ʿArabī, by Hany T.A. Ibrahim. Sheffield: Equinox Publishing, 2023, 182pp.

Reviewed by: Zeeshan Mahmood, Nottingham, UK  

The premodern Sufi Ibn ʿArabī (1165-1240 CE) enjoys a strong reception especially within contemporary Western academia, with commentary literature output on this towering savant increasing annually. Hany T.A. Ibrahim, a specialist in premodern Islamic thought, Arabic Sufi literature, Arabic language and currently a professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the University of Calgary, Canada, is the latest modern scholar to highlight vital achievements that this Andalusian Muslim bequeathed to the world. He perceptively observes that, whilst there is a vast scholarship on Islam and Ibn ʿArabī, there remains a fundamental lack of serious study on love (ḥubb) in Islam. Love in the Teachings of Ibn ʿArabī is a publication contributing to this amelioration effort, examining this issue through Ibn ʿArabī’s metaphysical lens of Divine Love.