Creativity is integral to the human being. Undeniably, our imagination is a force that impacts our daily life. The notion of imagination occupies a significant position in Ibn Arabi’s teachings since the Divine Imagination constitutes the very force that inspired the Great Master’s works.

As Henry Corbin succinctly puts it: “To the initial act of the Creator imagining the world corresponds the creature imagining his world, imagining the worlds, his God, his symbols.” Such a correlation between the Divine act of Creation and His creatures is an open invitation to those who wish to explore the realm of imagination. Thus, in this course, we invite you to dive into Ibn Arabi’s world of imagination. You will have the opportunity to connect your appreciation of Ibn Arabi’s text with your own creative expression such as poetry, writing, storytelling, drawing, painting and music etc. Such an interaction echoes James Morris’ observation on “the remarkably active approach which Ibn Arabi expects and constantly demands of his truly qualified and spiritually ‘ambitious’ readers, those who begin to interact with his work with the appropriate intentions and preparation.” (source: https://ibnarabisociety.org/how-to-study-the-futuhat james-morris/).

We are currently offering the following courses in 2025 which study Ibn Arabi’s Futuhat al-Makkiyya (The Meccan Openings), The Secrets of Voyaging, and The Ringstones of Wisdom (Fusus al Hikam)

Course overview

In the first heaven course, we focused attention on the Prophet’s journey and its symbolic relation with the spiritual journey towards God in The Secrets of Voyaging. In Heaven 2 course, we explored the multi-layered meanings of Ibn Arabi’s own ascension by focusing on his first encounters with Adam and Jesus in the Fusus al Hikam (The Ringstones of Wisdom or also translated as The Bezels of Wisdom). In Heaven 3, we are elevated into the world of true dreams. The title is the quote from Aishah (RA) (Bukhari 1:3) that Ibn Arabi cites in the opening paragraph from the “Wisdom of Light in the Word of Joseph” from the Ringstones of Wisdom (Fusus al Hikam).

A Spiritual Genius for Our Times: Ibn ‘Arabi in Context

taught by Dr. Yafiah Katherine Randall, Celia Salazar, and Wafa Al-Turk.

This course takes us on a journey through the life and teachings of Ibn ‘Arabi. While on this journey, we will read his own accounts of his conversion, meetings with mystics and philosophers, and some of the powerful visions he experienced. The aim is to experience the teachings of Ibn ‘Arabi in the cultural, religious, and philosophical milieu in which he lived, travelled, and wrote. Equally, we will each be asking how this applies to our lives today and seek ways to put the teachings of Ibn ‘Arabi into practice. We will seek to experience the teachings of Ibn ‘Arabi, reflect on their relevance to each of us as unique manifestations of the Names of God, and pursue right practice as a tool for the voyage of this life.

Date: 14th October 2025 to 18th November 2025.
Time: 5.30 pm to 7 pm London Time.
Length: 6 weeks.
Details for registration with Eventbrite will soon be available.

The Divine Feminine and Sacred Eros: Feminism in the Teachings of Ibn al-ʿArabī

We are delighted to announce an upcoming course led by Dr. Hany T. Ibrahim. Here are the details in his own words:

The Divine Feminine and Sacred Eros: Feminism in the Teachings of Ibn al-ʿArabī, taught by Dr. Hany T. Ibrahim. Offered for the first time through MIAS UK, this six-week course unveils a profound and long-overlooked dimension of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s teachings—one that reshapes how we understand gender, beauty, and the very architecture of Divine manifestation. Grounded in the Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam — especially the Faṣṣ on the Prophet Muḥammad, where Ibn al-ʿArabī affirms that the contemplation of God in woman is the most perfect and complete form of witnessing — this course explores sacred eros not as sentiment, but as the generative tension through which Being unfolds into form. Participants will engage symbolic readings of Ḥawwāʾ (Eve), Āsiyā, Maryam (Mary), Khadīja, and Fāṭima as archetypes of emergence, birthing, veiling, sustaining, and resistance — each a mirror of the Real in her own metaphysical register. This course is a radical re-encounter with the sacred feminine as a structural principle of Divine self-disclosure in the cosmology of the Greatest Master. Readings from the Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, the Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, and other writings of the Shaykh al-Akbar, alongside contemporary reflection, will be paired with live discussion in an immersive setting designed for deep inquiry and personal transformation. Open to all backgrounds, this is a rare opportunity to access the symbolic grammar at the heart of Sufi metaphysics — one that may change how you understand both love and the Divine.

Date: 13th January 2026
Time: 5.30 pm to 7 pm London Time.
Length: 6 weeks
Details for registration on Eventbrite will be posted closer to the time.

Halting Between Vision and Word: Readings in the Mawāqif of ‘Abd al-Jabbār al-Niffarī

We are delighted to share an upcoming course with Angela Jaffray (translator of The Secrets of Voyaging). Here is Angela’s description:

In this 6-week course, we will tread the mystical path traced out for us in the paradoxical and transformative mystical logbook titled the Mawāqif, or Haltings. Its author is the obscure 10th-century ascetic, Muḥammad ‘Abd al-Jabbār b. al-Ḥasan al-Niffarī, native of Iraq, who wandered west to the Egyptian desert, living apart from the various Sufi communities flourishing in his time. The intensity of his silent contemplation of the Real and singular concentration on His vision, gave birth to some of the finest mystical discourses in any language — addresses he received directly from the Real without intermediary. When the Real hailed him, he would halt and write down the searing words on scraps of paper. These precious fragments, later assembled, subsequently fell into the hands of the mystics of North Africa. Ignored in the Eastern Islamic lands of his birth for two centuries, al-Niffarī was, so to speak, “discovered” by the Shaykh al-Akbar, Muhyiddin ibn ‘Arabī, early on in his spiritual quest, possibly in the circle of his Tunisian shaykh al-Mahdawī. When the young Ibn ‘Arabi returned to al-Andalus, he composed one of his first and finest books, Mashāhid al-Asrār (Contemplation of the Holy Mysteries), inspired by Niffarī and written in a similar obscure and radical style.

We will be reading selections from Niffarī’s Haltings, along with associated texts by the Shaykh al-Akbar, seeking to experience a taste of the nature of the pause, that transitional, barzakhī, moment between past and future states and stations, when wayfarers dismount from their camels and muster their spiritual energies to prepare to encounter the Divine.
The Mawāqif, and its companion text, the Mukhāṭabāt (Addresses), were translated in the early 20th century by the British scholar Arthur J. Arberry. While his majestic rendering conveys the awe-inspiring mood of these texts, the immediacy and directness of Niffari’s speech often gets obscured by archaism. We will be reading from my new translation that seeks to bring us closer to the severe simplicity of the original.

Date: 7th April 2026 to 5th May 2026
Time: 5.30 pm to 7 pm London Time
Length: 6 weeks
Details for registration on Eventbrite will be posted closer to the time.

Heaven Courses offered in previous years

• 2025 Heaven 3 “Like the break of dawn”
  A study of dreams in a selection of texts by Ibn Arabi

• 2023 Heaven 2 “If not for Him, and if not for us”
  Exploring the multi-layered meanings of Ibn Arabi’s own ascension by focusing on his encounters with Adam and Jesus in the Fusus al-Hikam.

• 2022 Heaven 1 “The voyage by Him in Him”
  Exploring the nocturnal journey of the Prophet Muhammad in The Secrets of Voyaging.

Guest Courses offered in previous years

MIAS Education offers courses led by distinguished academics and researchers who have dedicated their life to study and translate Ibn Arabi’s thought. These courses provide participants distinctive viewpoints of the text while staying rooted in the spiritual and creative aspect of Ibn Arabi’s teachings.
 

• 2023 “Opening the Shells of the Two Sapphires” with Eric Winkel

• • 2023 Connections 2: Chapters from the Fusus

• • 2022 Connections 1: Sufism & Taoism by Toshihiko Izutsu