Summary: Ibn 'Arabi's erotic love poetry emerges from within the Arabic lyrical tradition. The named beloved in the poems is Nizam, a girl from Isfahan, who has been called Ibn 'Arabi's Beatrice. Michael Sells, who writes about and translates Ibn 'Arabi's love poetry, will discuss how the Nizam poems intimate a cultural romance between the Arabic and Persian literary, mystical and cultural worlds in the Middle Ages.
