Ibn 'Arabi Society

After receiving his Ph.D. degree in International Studies, Eric Winkel taught at the International Islamic University, Malaysia. He has been a Fulbright scholar in Pakistan. From 2001-2008 he taught at a small school he co-founded in New Mexico based on constructivist learning strategies and learning teams. Currently, he is joining the National College of Arts, Lahore. He has written numerous articles and monographs on religion and sacred law. His latest work is a novel, Damascus Steel. Eric Winkel's other published works include Mysteries of Purity: Ibn al-'Arabi's asrar al-taharah (1995) and Islam and the Living Law: The Ibn al-'Arabi Approach (1997). Current research interest is "The Openings Project," a digital dars which is an effort to assist searchers to gain access to the Futuhat in their own ways. He and Ely have two children, Aman (6) and Amnah (5 months).

Ian Almond is Associate Professor of Postcolonial Literature at Georgia State University, Atlanta. He is the author of four books, mostly on Islam and its representation in the Western tradition. He lived for six years in Turkey, where he taught for the most part at Kayseri and Istanbul.

Alexander Knysh is professor of Islamic Studies and former chair (1998-2004) of the Department of Near Eastern Studies, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He obtained his doctoral degree from the Institute for Oriental Studies (Leningrad Branch) of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1986. Since 1991 he has lived and worked in the United States of America and England. His research interests include Islamic mysticism and Islamic theological thought in historical perspective as well as Islam and Islamic movements in local contexts (especially Yemen and the Northern Caucasus). He has numerous publications on these subjects, including five books.

Th. Emil Homerin is Professor of Religion in the Department of Religion and Classics at the University of Rochester, where he teaches courses on Islam, classical Arabic literature, and mysticism. Homerin completed his Ph.D. with honors at the University of Chicago ('87), and has lived and worked in Egypt for a number of years. Among his many publications are From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint (2nd revised edition, Cairo: American University Press, 2001), his anthology of translations, Ibn al-Farid: Sufi Verse & Saintly Life (Paulist Press, 2001), The Wine of Love and Life (Chicago, 2005) and several chapters on Islam in the volume The Religious Foundations of Western Civilization (Abingdon Press, 2006). Homerin has been the recipient of grants from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, the American Research Center in Egypt, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has also won a number of awards including the American Association of Teachers of Arabic Translation Prize, the Golden Key Honor Society's recognition for his contributions to undergraduate education, University of Rochester's Teacher of the Year in the Humanities (2002), and the University of Rochester's Goergen Award for Distinguished Achievement and Artistry in Undergraduate Education (2005).

Peter Yiangou is currently the senior partner of an architectural practice based in the Cotswolds in the UK. His interest in Ibn 'Arabi started in 1972 when he met Bulent Rauf, the founder member of the MIAS. His interest in Ibn 'Arabi has continued since then through the activities of the Beshara School, also founded by Bulent Rauf. He spent time as head of the first Beshara Centre at Swyre Farm in the UK in 1975, and a period as Chairman of the Beshara Trust in the early 90's. He has attended 6 month and short courses at the Beshara School where Ibn 'Arabi is part of the core curriculum. In recent years he has been involved in running 10 Beshara School courses in Australia and Indonesia.

Angela Jaffray received her PhD from Harvard University's Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations in 2000. Her translations of Lorca's Sonnets of Dark Love were published in Collected Poems of Federico Garcia Lorca. Since graduating, she has dedicated herself to translating and commenting on various texts of Ibn 'Arabi, including The Universal Tree and the Four Birds: Ibn 'Arabi's Treatise on Unification, recently published by Anqa Publishing, and Unveiling from the Effects of the Voyages. She lives in Chicago.

Jane Carroll is a founding member of the Muyhiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society and is Chairperson on the board of the Society in America. She works as an architect in Ojai, California.

Suleyman Derin teaches at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Marmara in Istanbul. He obtained a Ph.D. from Leeds University, with a thesis titled Towards Some Paradigms on the Sufi Conception of Love: from Rabia to Ibn al-Farid, including a chapter on Ibn 'Arabi. His most recent work was on the subject of Ibn Arabi's approach to the verses of qisas "retaliation" titled "The Tradition of Sulh among the Sufis with Special Reference to Ibn 'Arabi and Yunus Emre"

Niels Detert has been a long-time student of Ibn 'Arabi under the umbrella of the Beshara School. He works as a Clinical Psychologist at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, specialising in Neuropsychology. His work is mainly clinical in the cognitive

assessment and psychological therapy of people with neurological disorders. He lives in Oxford with his partner and young son.

Samer is an intellectual historian and architectural theoretician with expertise in Islamic philosophy and mysticism. He has studied extensively the works of Ibn 'Arabi and his later follower 'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi (d. 1731). His Cosmology and Architecture in Premodern Islam: An Architectural Reading of Mystical Ideas (SUNY 2005) focuses on the influence of Ibn 'Arabi's teachings on architectural thinking, while his forthcoming book on Islam and the Enlightenment (Oneworld 2007) traces the development of Ibn 'Arabi's ideas through al-Nabulusi's life and works.