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Exploring how the medieval mystic Ibn 'Arabi has been read as an inclusive universalist through the interpretative field of Perennial Philosophy, this book shows how his metaphysics is inseparably intertwined with Islamic supersessionism. Ibn 'Arabi's universalist reception is thus traced to lineages of Eurocentrism, revealing how Perennialism is itself exclusionary.
List of contents
- Acknowledgements
- Prologue
- Introduction - Ibn 'Arabi and the Cartography of Universalism
- Chapter 1 - Tracking the Camels of Love
- Chapter 2 - Return of the Solar King
- Chapter 3 - Competing Fields of Universal Validity
- Chapter 4 - Ibn 'Arabi and the Metaphysics of Race
- Conclusion - Mapping Ibn 'Arabi at Zero Degrees
About the author
Gregory Lipton is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Macalester College, where he also held a Berg Postdoctoral Fellowhip in Religious Studies.
Summary
Exploring how the medieval mystic Ibn 'Arabi has been read as an inclusive universalist through the interpretative field of Perennial Philosophy, this book shows how his metaphysics is inseparably intertwined with Islamic supersessionism. Ibn 'Arabi's universalist reception is thus traced to lineages of Eurocentrism, revealing how Perennialism is itself exclusionary.
Additional text
Gregory Lipton's Rethinking Ibn 'Arabi is a crucial intervention in the studies of Sufism more particularly and mysticism more broadly. No matter how we imagine to be simply reading medieval texts directly, we are always reading these texts through a framework that is also shaped by our own theoretical lens. Lipton's work reminds us that our categories of universalism and mysticism are shaped also by the categories of the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly those shaped by profoundly problematic racial categorizations. It is a work that is urgently recommended for all scholars of Sufism, Islamic studies, and comparative mysticism.
