They called him "al-Sheikh al-Akbar" — the Greatest Sheikh. In over 350 books, Ibn Arabi mapped the territory of mystical experience more thoroughly than anyone before or since. Born in Spain, died in Damascus, he wandered the Islamic world gathering and transmitting the wisdom of the heart.
His central teaching was "wahdat al-wujud" — the Unity of Being. Not that God and creation are identical, but that there is only one existence, expressing itself in infinite forms. "Nothing exists except God," he wrote. "All things are His manifestation, His self-disclosure, His Names made visible."
"My heart has become capable of every form:
A pasture for gazelles, a monastery for monks,
A temple for idols, the pilgrim's Ka'ba,
The tablets of the Torah, the book of the Quran.
I follow the religion of Love:
Whatever way Love's camels take,
That is my religion and my faith."
This poem scandalized the orthodox. How could a Muslim speak of following any religion? But Ibn Arabi was not teaching relativism. He was pointing to what lies beneath all religions — the Love that takes different forms in different traditions but remains one Love.
"Do not attach yourself to any particular creed exclusively," he counseled, "so that you disbelieve in all the rest. God, the omnipresent and omnipotent, is not limited by any one creed. Wherever you turn, there is the face of God."
"When my Beloved appears,
With what eye do I see Him?
With His eye, not with mine,
For none sees Him except Himself.
In the mirror of my heart,
He sees His own reflection.
I do not see Him — He sees Himself through me."
Ibn Arabi distinguished between the "God of belief" — the God we imagine based on our theology — and the "God of reality" — the infinite that exceeds all imagination. Most people worship their concept of God and call it God. The mystic knows that the real God shatters every concept.
"God is beyond all that you imagine," he wrote. "Even your highest imagination is a limitation. The God you worship is the God you can conceive. The real God is the one who has no limits, who cannot be conceived."
Teaching 36
There is only one existence, taking infinite forms. Love is the religion beneath all religions. The God you conceive is not yet God — the real God exceeds all conception. Your heart can become capable of every form when it follows Love wherever Love leads.