Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi (Bollingen Series 91) [Paperback]

Henry Corbin (Author), Ralph Manheim (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1969

In this volume Henry Corbin emphasizes the differences between the exoteric and esoteric forms of Islam. He also reveals that whereas in the West philosophy and religion were at odds, they were inseparably linked, at least during this period, in the Islamic world.

A valuable section of notes and appendices includes original translation of numerous Sufi treatises.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)

Product Details

• Paperback: 406 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (1969)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691098522
• ISBN-13: 978-0691098524
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,362,552 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Alone with the Alone", April 2, 2009

By 

Heretic John - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spirituality, Sufism: Mini-set E 11 vols: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi (Routledge Library Editions: Islam) (Volume 7) (Hardcover)

I was so taken with the "Creative Imagination in The Sufism of Ibn Arabi" that I was ready to buy a copy of "Alone with the Alone". Thank goodness amazon let's you "look inside", turn's out it's a re-titling of the same book.
Fantastic by any name.
I am someone immersed in non-dual Eastern traditions, yet I am also guided in my life by a sense of devotion and the experience of grace felt as presence: mysteriously "other" yet non-separate.
I deeply appreciated the vision in this book which unifies all the opposites. Profound in it's honoring of Love as what we are and clearly describing how this so, it also maintains a clear recognition of the un-manifest source which that love reveals and in which that love arises: it's a breathtaking picture. It melts divisions while honoring them.

The language may be dense at times, but it's worth the effort.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect rendering for this Sufi Master, November 21, 2009

By 

Peter J. Rowan (Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Spirituality, Sufism: Mini-set E 11 vols: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi (Routledge Library Editions: Islam) (Volume 7) (Hardcover)

If this book was not available to the world of spiritual idealism we would be much worse off than we are now.
As an exercise in thoroughly intelligent and exacting design creating an intellectually nuanced masterpiece for me and also without doubt all of us I would entertain the not idea but elongationary notion that it is probably the finest book even written on the non-compliant Ibn Arabi.
The essential factor which possibly most miss is that the core of this extraordinary work is governed by Ibn Arabi's Sophia, whom he knew as the beautiful young Nizam. This young and lovely apparitional yet living young woman gave him her soul or quality of Sakti which governed Ibn Arabi's life to his native embellishment of Sufi Perfect Master, the same as Avatar Meher Baba, or in Sufi terminology Qtub-e-Irshid known as God-Realization.
Henry Corbin is a genius of the highest order and to further follow his directive we should learn more of the cosmological order of sustainable prototypicality in such works as 'God Speaks' by Avatar Meher Baba.
Corbin is an essential factor for all would be Sufi dialectics and will without doubt enrich the Sufi world immeasurably with his preponderant knowledge of essential and beautiful soul stirring imagery as is in this wondrous work of his.
Peter Rowan

10 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Philosophers have to make things difficult, June 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Walter Scott (Profiles in Literature) (Paperback)

Corbin, the late French Islamicist initially influened by existentialist thought, should be credited for rendering Ibn Arabi more difficult than the Muslim sufi himself -- this by itself is quite an achievement: the obscurity of an Arabic theosopher compounded by the obscurity of a French philosopher. Only in the academy!!!