Upcoming Worldwide Events and Symposiums

Looking forward in 2023

A listing of some future online and face-to-face events in 2023, taken from the Bulletin sent to Society members in December 2022. Check here for more details as they become available.

MIAS UK online events

• Altaf Bhimji – MIAS Interdisciplinary Research Hub Forum 1: 6 May, 2023
• Grégory Vandamme – MIAS Online Seminar 2: 24 June, 2023
• Hany Ibrahim – MIAS Interdisciplinary Research Hub Forum 2: 5 August, 2023
• MIAS UK Annual Members’ Meeting: 7 October, 2023 (TBC)
• Matthew Melvin-Koushki – MIAS Online Seminar 3: 2 December, 2023

MIAS USA

• Symposium at Columbia University, New York, October 2023

MIAS for Arabic speakers, online

• Samir Akkach – 18 February, 2023

More information

MIAS Latina

• 1 July, 2023. Conference in Torino. Provisional title: ‘Lingua sacra e ascolto spirituale in Ibn Arabi e la tradizione sufi’.
  Speakers: Federico Salvaggio, Luca Patrizi and Giovanni De Zorzi.
  Format: 3 talks on the subjects of linguistics, sama’a and music, followed by a concert.
  Venue: San Pietro in Vincoli, Torino.

18 February 2023 | Online event

Monthly lectures for Arabic speakers

The series of lectures in Arabic which began in November 2022 continues in February 2023 with a talk by Professor Samer Akkach, The University of Adelaide. It is entitled “Reading Sufism with Reference to History of Science: Ibn ʿArabī’s Cosmology”.

Professor Samer Akkach

Samer Akkach is Professor of Architecture and Founding Director of the Center for Architecture in Asia and the Middle East (CAMEA) at the University of Adelaide, Australia. Born and educated in Damascus before moving to Australia to complete his PhD at the University of Sydney. As an intellectual historian, Samer has devoted more than twenty years to the study of the mystical thought of Ibn Arabi and his intellectual legacy

A 12-month series of lectures

The is the fourth in the series of lectures organized by the recently formed Muhyiddin Ibn al ‘Arabi Society for Arabic Speakers. The aim of the series is to enhance and highlight knowledge of the thought and philosophy of Islamic mysticism, as well as creating an interactive platform between the Society, academic researchers and the general public. The lectures will be delivered by academics and researchers from East and West who specialise in Sufism, such as Dr Abdel Baqi Miftah from Algeria, Dr Abdel Jalil Salem from Tunisia, Dr Mohamed Amarech from Morocco and Dr Samer Akash from Syria. For more details of the series of lectures, please see the programme attached.

This Society was inaugurated at a meeting in Morocco in March 2022 at the University of Mohammad V in Rabat. Since then they have organized fortnightly reading sessions in Arabic and meet monthly to discuss society matters. Information about their aims and activities appears on the page of their Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/arabicibnarabi

Registration for this lecture

Attendance is free, but registration via this Eventbrite page will be necessary https://www.eventbrite.com/e/534354186757

For further information please e-mail mias-as@nokshee.com.

Some events from 2022

December 15 and 16 2022

Ibn ‘Arabi events in Brazil

Two events to do with Ibn ‘Arabi will take place in Brazil in December 2022.

On 15 December there will be presentations under the title “The Thought of Ibn ‘Arabi and the Persian World”, at the Federal University of Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais. The speakers will be Cecilia Twinch and Pablo Beneito.

It is part of the five-day long “Encontro de Saberes”, and also marks the inauguration of the Center for the Study of Classical Persian Cultures, the result of cooperation agreements with the University of Tehran and Allameh Tabataba’i University.

For more information see: https://ufop.br/noticias/encontro-de-saberes/palestra-o-pensamento-de-ibn-arabi-e-o-mundo-persa-e-o-seu-reflexo-no

On 16 December there will be a full day event at the PUC Minas (Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais) in Belo Horizonte under the title “I Simpósio de Mística Islâmica – Ao encontro de Ibn Arabi: receptividade e criatividade” (Meeting Ibn Arabi: receptivity and creativity).

Talks live-streamed on the YouTube channel of the Religious Sciences department can be seen here. https://www.youtube.com/@ppgcrpucminas3704

Speakers in the morning include Carlos Frederico, Pablo Beneito, Rodrigo Nogueira Martins, Sandra Benato and Fabrizio Boscaglia, and in the afternoon, Cecilia Twinch, Richard Twinch, Mário Werneck and Faustino Teixeira. Download the programme here.

November 2022 | Announcement of Winner

First MIAS Translation Prize Competition

This is a key text, combining Ibn ‘Arabi’s primary function as a Quran commentator and his treatment of lettrist, astrological and imperial themes, thereby giving us a window into important dimensions of Ibn ‘Arabi’s early modern reception and legacy. The prize committee was impressed with the degree of Professor Melvin-Koushki’s control over the text, his technical finesse and accuracy in translation, and the literary beauty of the English translation which does justice to the complexity and poetic flair of the original Arabic. The Prize was awarded by unanimous agreement of the judges.

The prize of US$ 3,000 was jointly sponsored by the Ibn ‘Arabi Societies in the UK and the USA, by MIAS AP (Australia Pacific), the Monash Ibn Arabi Initiative IAI, Australia, and by private donors.

19th-20th November 2022 | Online event

Ibn Arabi, receptivity and the idea of the feminine

The Society presents four online seminars under the title Ibn Arabi, receptivity and the idea of the feminine over the weekend November 19th and 20th, 2022. We hope that the timetable will enable members and friends worldwide to attend as many talks as possible.

Timetable

Shu’ayb Eric Winkel: The half-door and Salma’s house: the architecture of love
Saturday 19th November at 10.00 GMT (London time)

Jane Clark: Receptivity, activity and gender in Ibn Arabi’s work
Saturday 19th November at 18.00 GMT (London time)

Cecilia Twinch: Julian of Norwich: All manner of things shall be well
Sunday 20th November at 10.00 GMT (London time)

Gracia López Anguita: Divine ‘writing’ and the feminine in Ibn Arabi
Sunday 20th November at 18.00 GMT (London time)

Artwork depicting Ibn Arabi and Fatima bint al-Muthanna
by Antonella Leoni

‘I am your spiritual mother, and the light of your earthly mother’.
(Futuhat 2/348)

Antonella’s artwork was created in response to this quotation from the Futuhat and the title of our weekend. A video of the artwork will be shown on the Society’s website during the weekend.

September 2021 | Online talk

The Hidden Treasure Seminars

Ibn Arabi Interreligious Research Initiative (IAI) at Monash University, Australia

The last talk in the recent IAI Hidden Treasure series was delivered by Dr Eric Winkel, of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society, USA, on Saturday 4 September 2021. The title of his talk was: “‘I am a Buried Treasure, Concealed (in you):’ Ibn Arabi’s Role in the (our) Discovery of the Treasure Chest (in our chests)”.

Like other talks in this series between September 2020 and September 2021, the video and audio recording is available at https://www.monash.edu/arts/Ibn-Arabi-Interreligious-Research-Initiative/media

A new series will start in 2022, and details will be posted here when available.

The Hidden Treasure online seminar series introduced Ibn Arabi, looking at his relevance to the contemporary world. It is organised by the Ibn Arabi Initiative (IAI) at Monash University. These seminars were open to the public and free, but it is necessary to register in advance.

2020 | Online talks

Online talks in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian

International Ibn Arabi Reading Circle 2020

In response to the period of confinement required by the pandemic, MIAS-Latina has organized video conferences under the title International Ibn Arabi Reading Circle 2020.

The sessions, lasting approximately an hour and a half, have taken place at 5:00 p.m. Madrid time, which is also convenient for American participants. They include an introduction (in Spanish, Italian or Portuguese), time for debate with the speaker, and time for open dialogue (in any of these three languages) among the attendees.

The first cycle of talks ran from April 22nd to July 26th, and covered a wide range of subjects. The second cycle of talks began on September 6th. The speakers include

• Alberto Ventura, October 4th (Cosenza, Italy), L’Epistola sull’Unificazione. Il tawhîd esoterico di Arslân di Damasco. Introduction: Demetrio Giordano.
• Antonio de Diego (Seville, Spain), October 18, Ibn Arabi y el sufismo contemporáneo. El caso de la tariqa Tijâniyya. Introduction: Paolo Urizzi.

Information about registration and details of all the previous talks can be found on the MIAS-Latina website: https://ibnarabisociety.es/index.php?pagina=34&lang=es [/]

See also the contribution by Pablo Beneito in June to the MIAS Blog: Reading Circles in MIAS Latina 

2020 | About the online talks

Ibn ‘Arabi and The Geometry of Reality

This was a series of online talks organised by the Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi Society in the UK, with different speakers paying tribute to the work of Michel Chodkiewicz and Keith Critchlow, two Honorary Fellows, who passed away earlier this year.

These talks had the form of ‘webinars’, with a presentation of 30-40 minutes, followed by up to one hour’s discussion with participants.

The first series began on May 9th with a talk by Stephen Hirtenstein, entitled The Circle and the Compass, followed by Pablo Beneito (MIAS Latina) speaking on The Blessing-Prayer of Effusion (May 23rd), and Jane Carroll (MIAS USA) on The Point of the Compass (June 6th).

The second series of three talks saw Jane Clark speak on Structures of ‘two-ness’: equivalence, complementarity and inversion (June 20th), and Eric Winkel on The Encircled Alighting-places of the Quran (July 4th). The final talk in Series 2, The Symbolism of the Two Arcs: some reflections, by Paolo Urizzi, took place on Saturday July 18th.

The first talk in Series 3 was by Samer Akkach on The Geometry of Causality and Unfolding of Destiny, followed by The Perplexing Geometry of Being: Ibn ʿArabi’s Correlative Ontology and the Notion of thubūt (August 1st), by Gregory Vandamme, (August 15th), and The Alif – the One, the Many and the Beautiful, by Rim Feriani (August 29th)..

Series 4 had talks by Michele Petrone, The Dot and the Line: Akbarian views on time and the instant (September 12th); Alexander Knysh, Tasting, Drinking and Quenching Thirst: From Mystical Experience to Mystical Metaphysics (September 26th); and Gracia López Anguita, The Structure of the Universe as a Network (October 10th).

In Series 5, Cyrus Zargar spoke on The Ambiguities of Union: Exploring the Relationship between Perception and Reality (October 24th), Carlos Berbil on A Fresh Look at Ibn Sabʿīn: The Circular Scale of Transcendence and Mediation (November 7th), and finally, Luca Patrizi’s paper was entitled Thus Spoke Adam: The Suryāniyya Language in Islamic Esotericism (November 21st).

The final session of the series was in the form of a special round table gathering of speakers from the series, with invited guests. It took place on Saturday, 5th December 2020.

Videos

Videos of all the talks in Series 1 to Series 5 are now available in the Podcasts and Videos section of this website, and on the Society’s YouTube channel. These recordings include the talk, but not the questions and discussion that followed.

2020 | Symposium | Oxford, UK

Breath of Creation, Breath of Compassion

Organised by the Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi Society and SOAS School of Languages, Cultures and Religions, London

In view of the coronavirus pandemic currently affecting so many parts of the world, it is necessary to postpone this event, which was scheduled for 9th/10th May 2020. We will update this page when we have more information about the possibilities of a physical symposium.

Confirmed speakers 

• Professor James Morris (Boston College, USA)
• Dr. Kazuyo Murata (King’s College London, UK)
• Dr. Oludamini Ogunnaike (University of Virginia, USA)
• Dr. Dia Barghouti (Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK)
• Dr. Aydogan Kars (Monash University, Melbourne, Australia)