Abstract This article investigates how the Sufi theorist Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī’s (d. 638/1240) conception of metaphysical perplexity ( ḥayra ) relates to the entropic brain hypothesis, which has been proposed by Robin Carhart-Harris in the fields of human neuroscience and psychopharmacology. Studies have demonstrated a correlation between the ego and the default mode network ( DMN ). The ego...
Abū ‘Alī ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1027) is regarded as the most influential philosopher in Islamic intellectual history. Of his numerous contributions, none has garnered more attention than his ontological proof for the existence of God, known as ‘the Demonstration of the Truthful’ (Burhān al-ṣiddiqīn). In this proof, Ibn Sīnā argues that only one being can be ‘necessarily existent’ (wājib al-wujūd)....
Arguably the most influential Sufi thinker in Islam, Muḥyī l-Dīn Ibn ʻArabī (d. 638/1240), views revelatory knowledge and mystical experience, what he terms ‘spiritual unveiling’ (kashf), as a form of continuing divine revelation that is bequeathed to the spiritual elite or saints (awliyā’). As the self-proclaimed ‘Seal of Saints’ (Khātam al-awliyā’), who is the mystical heir to the wisdom of...