ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240), the leading figure of the Sufi theosophical tradition, whose thought unites philosophy, theology, and mysticism into a single vision of divine reality. Ibn ʿArabī's epistemology expands beyond the kalām model of sense, report, and reason to include unveiling, tasting, and witnessing, modes of knowledge granted by divine disclosure rather than discursive reasoning. God's existence is self-evident and not in need of proof, though Ibn ʿArabī allows for rational reflection that culminates in awareness of contingency and divine necessity. His metaphysics of the unity of being presents God as both utterly transcendent and utterly immanent through the manifestation of the divine names in creation, mediated by immutable archetypes in the divine knowledge. Creation is not from nothing but from God Himself through self-disclosure, revealing a cosmos that is purposive, continuous, and hierarchically structured. Miracles are not interruptions of nature but expressions of divine renewal within a constantly recreated world. Ibn ʿArabī's hermeneutics combines strict textual literalism with symbolic allusion, affirming multiple layers of meaning within the Qurʾān and balancing God's transcendence and immanence through the interplay of reason and imagination. Humanity occupies a unique status as the mirror of divine names, with the perfect man representing the full manifestation of God's attributes. Freedom and divine will coexist through participation: humans act within divine knowledge while retaining moral agency. Ibn ʿArabī's vision of science situates natural enquiry within divine theophany, rejecting methodological naturalism, which excludes God from explanation, and offering a holistic understanding of reality where knowing the cosmos and knowing God are inseparable acts of illumination.
