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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Theoretical Gnosis and Doctrinal Sufism and Their Significance Today The Arab World From this early foundation located in Syria and Anatolia the teachings of the School of Ibn ‘Arabī and theoretical gnosis spread to different regions of the Islamic world. In summary fashion we shall try to deal with some of the most important figures in each region. Let us commence with the Arab world.

In the Maghrib a very strong Sufi tradition has been preserved over the centuries but Maghribī Sufism, although devoted to gnosis in its purest form as we see in such figures as Abū Madyan, Ibn Mashīsh and Abu’l-Hasan al-Shādhilī, was not given to long theoretical expositions of gnosis as we see in the East.17 Most works from this region were concerned with the practice of the Sufi path and explanation of practical Sufi teachings.

One had to wait for the 12th/18th century to find in the works of Ahmad ibn ‘Ajībah (d. 1224/1809-10) treatises which belong to the genre of theoretical gnosis. But the oral tradition based on Ibn ‘Arabian teachings was kept alive as we see in the personal instructions and also written works of such celebrated 14th/20th century Sufi masters of the Maghrib as Shaykh al-‘Alawī (d. 1353/1934) and Shaykh Muhammad al-Tādilī (d.

1371/1952).18 Maghribī works on gnosis tended, however, to be usually less systematic and philosophical in their exposition of gnosis than those of the East. A supreme example of Ibn ‘Arabian teachings emanating from the Maghrib is to be found in the writings of the celebrated Algerian amīr and Sufi master ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Jazā’irī (d. 1300/1883), who taught the works of Ibn ‘Arabī when in exile in Damascus.

Amīr ‘Abd al-Qādir also composed a number of independent works on gnosis such as the Kitāb al-mawāqif.19 To this day the text of the Fusūs and the Futūhāt are taught in certain Sufi enters of the Maghrib especially those associated with the Shādhiliyyah Order which has continued to produce over the centuries its own distinct genre of Sufi literature going back to the prayers of Abu’l-Hasan al-Shādhilī (d.

656/1258) and especially the treatises of the third pole of the Order, Ibn ‘Atā’ Allāh al-Iskandarī (d.709/1309). In later centuries these two currents, the first issuing from early Shādhilism and the second from Ibn ‘Arabian gnosis were to meet in many notable figures of Sufism from that as well as other regions.