Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi

by Henry Corbin, Ralph Manheim

Overview

"Henry Corbin's works are the best guide to the visionary tradition.... Corbin, like Scholem and Jonas, is remembered as a scholar of genius. He was uniquely equipped not only to recover Iranian Sufism for the West, but also to defend the principal Western traditions of esoteric spirituality."—From the introduction by Harold Bloom


Ibn 'Arabi (1165-1240) was one of the great mystics of all time. Through the richness of his personal experience and the constructive power of his intellect, he made a unique contribution to Shi'ite Sufism. In this book, which features a powerful new preface by Harold Bloom, Henry Corbin brings us to the very core of this movement with a penetrating analysis of Ibn 'Arabi's life and doctrines.


Corbin begins with a kind of spiritual topography of the twelfth century, emphasizing the differences between exoteric and esoteric forms of Islam. He also relates Islamic mysticism to mystical thought in the West. The remainder of the book is devoted to two complementary essays: on "Sympathy and Theosophy" and "Creative Imagination and Creative Prayer." A section of notes and appendices includes original translations of numerous Su fi treatises.


Harold Bloom's preface links Sufi mysticism with Shakespeare's visionary dramas and high tragedies, such as The Tempest and Hamlet. These works, he writes, intermix the empirical world with a transcendent element. Bloom shows us that this Shakespearean cosmos is analogous to Corbin's "Imaginal Realm" of the Sufis, the place of soul or souls.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691058344
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	03/22/1998
Series:	Bollingen Series , #83
Edition description:	With a New preface by Harold Bloom
Pages:	440
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Henry Corbin was Professor of Islamic Religion at the Sorbonne and was the leading authority in the West on Iranian-Islamic thought.

Table of Contents

List of Plates

Preface

Introduction

Between Andalusia and Iran: A Brief Spiritual Topography 3

The Curve and Symbols of Ibn 'Arabi's Life 38

At Averroes' Funeral 38

The Pilgrim to the Orient 46

The Disciple of Khidr 53

His Maturity and the Completion of His Work 68

The Situation of Esoterism 77

Divine Passion and Compassion 105

The Prayer of the Heliotrope 105

The "Pathetic God" 112

Of Unio Mystica as Unio Sympathetica 120

Sophiology and Devotio Sympathetica 136

The Sophianic Poem of a Fedele d'amore 136

The Dialectic of Love 145

The Creative Feminine 157

Prologue 179

The Creation as Theophany 184

The Creative Imagination as Theophany, or the "God from Whom All Being Is Created" 184

The God Manifested by the Theophanic Imagination 190

The "God Created in the Faiths" 195

The Recurrence of Creation 200

The Twofold Dimension of Beings 207

Theophanic Imagination and Creativity of the Heart 216

The Field of the Imagination 216

The Heart as a Subtile Organ 221

The Science of the Heart 237

Man's Prayer and God's Prayer 246

The Method of Theophanic Prayer 246

Homologations 257

The Secret of the Divine Responses 262

The "Form of God" 272

The Hadith of the Vision 272

Around the Mystic Ka'aba 277

Epilogue 282

Notes and Appendices 285

List of Works Cited 391

Index 399