Ibn 'Arabi Society

Jane Clark is a Senior Research Fellow of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society, and has workedparticularly on the Society's Archiving Project as well looking after the library. She has been studying Ibn 'Arabi for more than forty years, and is engaged in teaching courses and lecturing on his thought both in the UK (including Oxford University, Temenos Academy) and abroad (including Egypt, Australia, USA), and in research and translation of the akbarian heritage. She has a particular interest in the correlation of Ibn 'Arabī's thought with contemporary issues; she was a co-founder of The Journal of Consciousness Studies, and is currently editor of Beshara Magazine. She organises the MIAS Young Writers Award.

James Morris (Boston College) has taught and published widely on Islamic and religious studies over the past 40 years at the Universities of Exeter, Princeton, Oberlin, and the Institute of Ismaili Studies in Paris and London, serving recently as visiting professor in Istanbul, Paris, and Jogjakarta. He has lived and studied in regions from Morocco to Indonesia, and he lectures and leads workshops in many countries on Islamic philosophy and theology, Sufism, the Islamic humanities (poetry, music, and visual arts), the Qur'an and hadith, and esoteric Shiism. Recently he has led interfaith study-abroad programs centering on sacred sites, pilgrimage, sainthood, and related arts and architecture in Turkey and France. His forthcoming books include Openings: From the Qur'an to the Islamic Humanities; Approaching Ibn 'Arabi: Foundations, Contexts, Interpretations; Ostad Elahi's "Demonstration of the Truth"; and "Servants of the All-Merciful": Ibn 'Arabi on Spiritual Practice and Realization.

Angela Jaffray (PhD Harvard University) is an independent scholar, specializing in the translation of and commentary on the short works of Ibn 'Arabi. Her translation of Ibn 'Arabi's al-Ittihad al-kawni (The Universal Tree and the Four Birds) was published by Anqa Publications in 2007 and her article "Watered with One Water: Ibn 'Arabi on the One and the Many” appeared in the Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society in 2008. Her most recent translation and commentary of Ibn 'Arabi's Isfar 'an nata'ij al-asfar (The Secrets of Voyaging), was published by Anqa Publications in 2015, reprinted in 2016. She divides her time between Jerusalem and Chicago.

Oludamini Ogunnaike is an assistant professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. He teaches courses on African and African Diasporic Religions as well as Islam, Islamic Philosophy, Spirituality, and Art. He holds a PhD in African Studies and the Study of Religion from Harvard University, and spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University's Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies. Professor Ogunnaike's research examines the philosophical dimensions of postcolonial, colonial, and pre-colonial Islamic and indigenous religious traditions of West and North Africa, especially Sufism and Ifa. He is currently working on a book entitled, Sufism and Ifa: Ways of Knowing in Two West African Intellectual Traditions and maintains a digital archive of West African Sufi poetry.

Stefan Sperl is Professor of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies, School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, at SOAS University of London. He was born in Stuttgart and brought up in Luxembourg. He studied Arabic at Oxford and the American University in Cairo and did his postgraduate research at SOAS, London. In 1978 he joined UNHCR and held several assignments in the Middle East and Geneva. He returned to SOAS 1988. His publications include Mannerism in Arabic Poetry (1989), Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa (1996, with Christopher Shackle), as well as numerous articles on Arabic, Islamic and Refugee Studies. In 2005 he embarked on a research project with Ahmed Moustafa which resulted in their joint publication The Cosmic Script: Sacred Geometry and the Science of Arabic Penmanship (2014). It won the Iran World Award for the Book of the Year in 2016. He was co-organiser of the 2017 MIAS symposium 'Ibn Arabi and the Philosophers' at SOAS and in November 2017 organiser of the conference 'Faces of the Infinite, Neoplatonism and Poetics at the Confluence of Africa, Asia and Europe' at the British Academy and SOAS.

Michael Sells is the professor of Islamic Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago. His publications on Arabic poetry, Sufism, and mystical language include Desert Tracings: Six Classic Arabian Odes (1989); Mystical Languages of Unsaying (1994); Stations of Desire: Love Elegies from Ibn ʿArabī and New Poems (2000); Early Islamic Mysticism (1996); and the Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, al-Andalus (2000, which he coedited with Maria Rosa Menocal and Raymond Scheindlin). His essay "Love", which compares differing configurations of the "religion of love" in Arabic love poetry and his translation of the Nuniyya, a poem by the Andalusian poet of courtly love Ibn Zaydun, appear in the same al-Andalus volume. Qur'anic Studies Today, which he coedited with Angelika Neuwirth and to which he contributed an essay on the Moses story in Sura 20, appeared in 2015. He is currently working on a complete bi-lingual edition and translation of Ibn 'Arabi's Tarjuman al-Ashwaq.

Stephen Hirtenstein has been editor of the Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society since its inception in 1982, and is a co-founder of Anqa Publishing. He read History at King's College, Cambridge, and then studied at the Beshara School of Intensive Esoteric Education in Gloucestershire and Scotland. After a teaching career, he began writing and giving talks on Ibn 'Arabi's thought at conferences across the world. In addition to lecturing and writing, he organises and leads tours in the footsteps of Ibn 'Arabi. He currently works as a Senior Editor for the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London, and is a Short courses tutor in the Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford. His publications include The Unlimited Mercifier – The spiritual life and thought of Ibn 'Arabi (1999), The Seven Days of the Heart Prayers for the nights and days of the week – Ibn 'Arabi's Awrad al-usbu (2000), Divine Sayings – 101 Hadith Qudsi – The Mishkat al-Anwar of Ibn 'Arabi (2004), and most recently The Alchemy of Human Happiness – Chapter 167 of Ibn 'Arabi's Meccan Illuminations – Fi ma'rifat kimiya' al-sa'ada (2017)

Heba Youssry is currently the Director of Manor House International School in Egypt. She holds a double BA in the fields of Business Administration and Philosophy and a double MA in Arabic Literature and Philosophy all of which were attained from the American University in Cairo. She formerly held the position of Country Director for an NGO called Seeds of Peace, where she worked on establishing communication links between teenagers in countries impacted by the Middle Eastern conflict. Also, she worked as a freelance literary critic for Egypt Independent, an English language newspaper.

Hany Ibrahim is a PhD candidate and teaching assistant at the University of Calgary. His teaching and research interests include Quranic exegesis, hadith, Sufism, Islamic art and architecture. His academic research is on Ibn 'Arabi and the metaphysics of love in The Meccan Openings. He is currently authoring a book entitled, Hallaj: In the Ocean of Oneness (forthcoming, Fall 2018)

Angela Jaffray is an independent scholar, specializing in the translation of and commentary on the short works of Ibn 'Arabi. Her translation of Ibn 'Arabi's al-Ittiad al-kawni (The Universal Tree and the Four Birds) was published by Anqa Publications in 2007. Her most recent translation and commentary of Ibn 'Arabī's Isfar 'an nata'ij al-asfār (The Secrets of Voyaging), was published by Anqa Publications in 2015