Ibn 'Arabi Society

After graduating from Aleppo University (Syria) in 1990, he did a Masters degree in Physics at Cambridge University. After teaching Physics for several years in the UAE, he obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Exeter in 2005. The subject of his research was "The Concept of Time in Ibn 'Arabi's Cosmology". A book based on this research, called Ibn 'Arabi - Time and Cosmology was published by Routledge in 2007. He has written other books related to Ibn 'Arabi including Shams-al-Magreb (in Arabic) which contains a detailed biography of Ibn 'Arabi. In addition he founded and runs the website www.ibnalarabi.com. Currently he is teaching at the United Arab Emirates University.

Sebastian Brock is an authority in the field of Syriac language. He is a former Reader in Syriac Studies at the University of Oxford's Oriental Institute and currently an Emeritus Fellow at Wolfson College. He is a Fellow of the British Academy. Sebastian Brock completed his BA degree at the University of Cambridge, and a D. Phil at Oxford. He is the recipient of a number of honorary doctorates and has been awarded the Medal of Saint Ephrem the Syrian by the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch. He is a widely published author on Syriac topics. His best known books are The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem the Syrian and The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life.

Katia Holmes MA, MSc, Post-grad. Anthropology, spent three years lecturing at Paris University in the early 70s. A sabbatical at Samye Ling (Scotland) with Akong Rinpoche, one of the first Tibetan lamas in the West, led to a lifetime of study and practice of Buddhism. She has translated core Tibetan texts, interpreted for major Kagyu lineage masters and researched Tibetan medicine, besides translating professionally for French publishers. She is particularly interested in the issue of transposing concepts between cultures. Years of turning inwards and patient chiselling has made her appreciate the fragile power of words to evoke the ineffable.

Dr. Pablo Beneito is Professor at the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Faculty of Philology, University of Seville. He has edited and translated several of Ibn 'Arabi's works: the Mashahid al-asrar (with Souad al-Hakim, Spanish and Arabic edn.; with Cecilia Twinch, English version); the Kashf al-ma'na (El secreto de los Nombres de Dios) on the Divine Names; and, with Stephen Hirtenstein, Ibn 'Arabi's Awrad, translated into English as The Seven Days of the Heart. Among other works, recently he has published the anthology La taberna de las luces on Sufi poetry and the book El lenguaje de las alusiones on Ibn Arabi's doctrines of love, beauty and compassion. He is the Director of the collection Alquitara (devoted to Oriental literature) in Ediciones Mandala (Madrid).

Dr. Ghasem Kakaie is an Associate Professor and the Head of Theology and Islamic Sciences Department of Shiraz University in Iran. He was born in Shiraz in 1957. His main fields of researches are: Ibn Arabi, Sufism, Islamic Philosophy, and Comparative Mysticism. He has had a great and long time programme on interreligious dialogue from 1998 on. He has published more than 50 papers in international journals and also more than 10 books. He has won several scientific rewards in Iran, such as the best book of the year for his book: Oneness of Being from Ibn Arabi's and Meister Elkhart's viewpoints (2002).

Stephen Hirtenstein is editor of the Ibn 'Arabi Society Journal. He studied at the Beshara School in Scotland, and is co-founder of Anqa Publishing. His publications include a biography of Ibn 'Arabi, "The Unlimited Mercifier: The Spiritual Life and Thought of Ibn 'Arabi" (1999), a translation with Pablo Beneito of Ibn 'Arabi's Awrad as "The Seven Days of the Heart" (2000) and with Martin Notcutt of Ibn 'Arabi's Mishkat al-anwar as "Divine Sayings" (2005). He is currently working on a translation of some of Ibn 'Arabi's shorter texts.

James W. Morris is professor in Theology at Boston College. He has written and taught in many areas of spirituality and religious thought, including the Islamic humanities, Islamic philosophy, Sufism, and cinema in spiritual teaching. His recent books include The Reflective Heart: Discovering Spiritual Intelligence in Ibn 'Arabi's 'Meccan Illuminations' (2005); Orientations: Islamic Thought in a World Civilisation (2004); Knowing the Spirit (2006); and Ibn 'Arabi: The Meccan Revelations (2002).

Denis Gril was born in Paris in 1949. He studied Arabic language and civilisation at the Sorbonne. He spent several years in Arabic countries for teaching or reseach. He was for five years a member of the Institut Francais d'Archeologie Orientale in Cairo. Since 1981 he is a teacher of Arabic language and Islamic thought at the Universite de Provence. He is also a member of IREMAM (Institut de Recherche et d'Etudes sur le Monde Arabe et Musulman). He studied, published and translated some works of Ibn al-'Arabi and different aspects of his doctrine. He is also interested by lifes of saints as a source for History of Sufism and also by the foundation of Islamic spirituality in Koran and Sunna.

Shahram Pazouki is professor of Philosophy and religious studies at the Iranian Institute of Philosophy and head of the department. He researches and teaches in the subjects of comparative philosophy and religions, Sufism,philosophy of art, and has published books and articles on these subjects.

Carl W. Ernst is a specialist in Islamic studies, with a focus on West and South Asia. His published research, based on the study of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, has been mainly devoted to the study of Islam and Sufism. His most recent book, Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World (UNC Press, 2003), has received several international awards, including the 2004 Bashrahil Prize for Outstanding Cultural Achievement. His current projects include Muslim interpretations of Hinduism and the literary interpretation of the Qur'an. His publications include Sufi Martyrs of Love: Chishti Sufism in South Asia and Beyond (co-authored with Bruce Lawrence, 2002); Teachings of Sufism (1999); a translation of The Unveiling of Secrets: Diary of a Sufi Master by Ruzbihan Baqli (1997);Guide to Sufism (1997); Ruzbihan Baqli: Mystical Experience and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian Sufism (1996); Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History, and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center (1993); and Words of Ecstasy in Sufism (1985).

William C. Chittick is professor of religious studies in the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. He has spent forty years studying Ibn Arabi and his followers, not to mention the pre-modern Muslim intellectual tradition in general. Among his thirty books, five deal specifically with Ibn Arabi's thought: The Sufi Path of Knowledge (1989), Imaginal Worlds (1992), The Self-Disclosure of God (1998), Ibn Arabi: Heir to the Prophets (2005), and, as co-author, The Meccan Revelations (2002).

Sara Sviri studied and has taught Arabic and Islamic Studies in Israel. In her studies, published in various compilations and journals, she has focused on the formation and characteristics of the early mystical schools of Islam, with special interest in the Malamati movement of Nishapur and in the mystical psychology of al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi. Her book, The Taste of Hidden Things: Images on the Sufi Path, portrays Sufism as a living tradition in which insights into the stations of the heart play an important role.

Jane Clark is a teacher who lives in Oxford. She has been studying Ibn 'Arabi's thought for nearly thirty years as a student of the Beshara School, and in 2000 took a degree at Oxford in order to read him in the original Arabic. She is particularly interested in the way that his ideas have spread throughout the world, and as Society Librarian has done research work on the early manuscripts. She has written and lectured on Ibn 'Arabi's thought and is most concerned with the universal appeal of his writings, especially as revealed in Fusus al-hikam.

After receiving his Ph.D. degree in International Studies, Eric Winkel taught at the International Islamic University, Malaysia. He has been a Fulbright scholar in Pakistan. From 2001-2008 he taught at a small school he co-founded in New Mexico based on constructivist learning strategies and learning teams. Currently, he is joining the National College of Arts, Lahore. He has written numerous articles and monographs on religion and sacred law. His latest work is a novel, Damascus Steel. Eric Winkel's other published works include Mysteries of Purity: Ibn al-'Arabi's asrar al-taharah (1995) and Islam and the Living Law: The Ibn al-'Arabi Approach (1997). Current research interest is "The Openings Project," a digital dars which is an effort to assist searchers to gain access to the Futuhat in their own ways. He and Ely have two children, Aman (6) and Amnah (5 months).

Ian Almond is Associate Professor of Postcolonial Literature at Georgia State University, Atlanta. He is the author of four books, mostly on Islam and its representation in the Western tradition. He lived for six years in Turkey, where he taught for the most part at Kayseri and Istanbul.