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In this course we will explore the multi-layered meanings of the journey in Ibn Arabi’s teachings. We will read a selection of passages from Ibn Arabi’s The Secrets of Voyaging.

1. Identify the key aspects of Ibn Arabi’s journey (isfar).

2. Develop a familiarity with Ibn Arabi’s central concepts such as unveiling and the unseen.

3. Discuss the significance of the reader’s interpretation in achieving a better understanding of Ibn Arabi’s spiritual world.

Upon completion of this course, you can achieve any of the possible outcomes below:

In this course we will explore the multi-layered meanings of the journey with a particular focus on Noah’s and Adam’s voyages in The Secrets of Voyaging. There are of course several ways of reading and interpreting Ibn Arabi’s texts. Ibn Arabi himself states “Know that the same thing can have different aspects” (The Secrets of Voyaging, 2015: p. 115). What we propose in this course is a hermeneutic model of interpretation which allows these multiple aspects of reading to co-exist, without necessarily ascribing one single meaning to the concept of the journey. Drawing both on Paul Ricœur’s theory of interpretation and Ibn Arabi’s esoteric hermeneutics, this course combines two schools of thought, seeking to place emphasis on the interactive engagement between the world of the text, the reader’s world and an experiential access to the ‘secrets of voyaging’.

This course combines lecture instructions with group discussions and individual readings. Instructional strategies include mini-lectures, textual analysis, guided individual reflection and discussion.

A journey across the ocean

A journey across the desert

A journey to heaven

A journey into language