Ibn 'Arabi Society

Dr. Pablo Beneito is Professor at the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Faculty of Philology, University of Seville. He has edited and translated several of Ibn 'Arabi's works: the Mashahid al-asrar (with Souad al-Hakim, Spanish and Arabic edn.; with Cecilia Twinch, English version); the Kashf al-ma'na (El secreto de los Nombres de Dios) on the Divine Names; and, with Stephen Hirtenstein, Ibn 'Arabi's Awrad, translated into English as The Seven Days of the Heart. Among other works, recently he has published the anthology La taberna de las luces on Sufi poetry and the book El lenguaje de las alusiones on Ibn Arabi's doctrines of love, beauty and compassion. He is the Director of the collection Alquitara (devoted to Oriental literature) in Ediciones Mandala (Madrid).

Dr. Ghasem Kakaie is an Associate Professor and the Head of Theology and Islamic Sciences Department of Shiraz University in Iran. He was born in Shiraz in 1957. His main fields of researches are: Ibn Arabi, Sufism, Islamic Philosophy, and Comparative Mysticism. He has had a great and long time programme on interreligious dialogue from 1998 on. He has published more than 50 papers in international journals and also more than 10 books. He has won several scientific rewards in Iran, such as the best book of the year for his book: Oneness of Being from Ibn Arabi's and Meister Elkhart's viewpoints (2002).

Stephen Hirtenstein is editor of the Ibn 'Arabi Society Journal. He studied at the Beshara School in Scotland, and is co-founder of Anqa Publishing. His publications include a biography of Ibn 'Arabi, "The Unlimited Mercifier: The Spiritual Life and Thought of Ibn 'Arabi" (1999), a translation with Pablo Beneito of Ibn 'Arabi's Awrad as "The Seven Days of the Heart" (2000) and with Martin Notcutt of Ibn 'Arabi's Mishkat al-anwar as "Divine Sayings" (2005). He is currently working on a translation of some of Ibn 'Arabi's shorter texts.

James W. Morris is professor in Theology at Boston College. He has written and taught in many areas of spirituality and religious thought, including the Islamic humanities, Islamic philosophy, Sufism, and cinema in spiritual teaching. His recent books include The Reflective Heart: Discovering Spiritual Intelligence in Ibn 'Arabi's 'Meccan Illuminations' (2005); Orientations: Islamic Thought in a World Civilisation (2004); Knowing the Spirit (2006); and Ibn 'Arabi: The Meccan Revelations (2002).

Denis Gril was born in Paris in 1949. He studied Arabic language and civilisation at the Sorbonne. He spent several years in Arabic countries for teaching or reseach. He was for five years a member of the Institut Francais d'Archeologie Orientale in Cairo. Since 1981 he is a teacher of Arabic language and Islamic thought at the Universite de Provence. He is also a member of IREMAM (Institut de Recherche et d'Etudes sur le Monde Arabe et Musulman). He studied, published and translated some works of Ibn al-'Arabi and different aspects of his doctrine. He is also interested by lifes of saints as a source for History of Sufism and also by the foundation of Islamic spirituality in Koran and Sunna.

Shahram Pazouki is professor of Philosophy and religious studies at the Iranian Institute of Philosophy and head of the department. He researches and teaches in the subjects of comparative philosophy and religions, Sufism,philosophy of art, and has published books and articles on these subjects.

Carl W. Ernst is a specialist in Islamic studies, with a focus on West and South Asia. His published research, based on the study of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, has been mainly devoted to the study of Islam and Sufism. His most recent book, Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World (UNC Press, 2003), has received several international awards, including the 2004 Bashrahil Prize for Outstanding Cultural Achievement. His current projects include Muslim interpretations of Hinduism and the literary interpretation of the Qur'an. His publications include Sufi Martyrs of Love: Chishti Sufism in South Asia and Beyond (co-authored with Bruce Lawrence, 2002); Teachings of Sufism (1999); a translation of The Unveiling of Secrets: Diary of a Sufi Master by Ruzbihan Baqli (1997);Guide to Sufism (1997); Ruzbihan Baqli: Mystical Experience and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian Sufism (1996); Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History, and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center (1993); and Words of Ecstasy in Sufism (1985).

William C. Chittick is professor of religious studies in the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. He has spent forty years studying Ibn Arabi and his followers, not to mention the pre-modern Muslim intellectual tradition in general. Among his thirty books, five deal specifically with Ibn Arabi's thought: The Sufi Path of Knowledge (1989), Imaginal Worlds (1992), The Self-Disclosure of God (1998), Ibn Arabi: Heir to the Prophets (2005), and, as co-author, The Meccan Revelations (2002).

Sara Sviri studied and has taught Arabic and Islamic Studies in Israel. In her studies, published in various

compilations and journals, she has focused on the formation and characteristics of the early mystical

schools of Islam, with special interest in the Malamati movement of Nishapur and in the mystical

psychology of al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi. Her book, The Taste of Hidden Things: Images on the Sufi Path,

portrays Sufism as a living tradition in which insights into the stations of the heart play an important role.

Jane Clark is a teacher who lives in Oxford. She has been studying Ibn 'Arabi's thought for nearly thirty years as a student of the Beshara School, and in 2000 took a degree at Oxford in order to read him in the original Arabic. She is particularly interested in the way that his ideas have spread throughout the world, and as Society Librarian has done research work on the early manuscripts. She has written and lectured on Ibn 'Arabi's thought and is most concerned with the universal appeal of his writings, especially as revealed in Fusus al-hikam.