Author Description

The thoughts of Ibn ʿArabī could actually be compared with the thought of Plotinus on the basis of many similarities between them; but there are also some differences between Plotinus the mystic and Ibn ʿArabī the Sufi. The mysticism to Plotinus is a mental mysticism and the mediators, that mediate between God and the man, are the mental mediators as well, while the mysticism to Ibn ʿArabī does not depend on the mind completely and the mediators are also not mental mediators, as they are not based on the theory of (Emanation) or the overflowing of all organisms gradually through the first one. So the universe that does come up from the one to Plotinus, that one is equal to the divinity, which is a level of the absolute utopian world, named by Ibn ʿArabī the isthmus of the isthmuses, which is also in its turn a mediator between the divine and world. The overflowing of the universe from the divinity and cosmic symptoms is not by the overflowing or through the emanation to Ibn ʿArabī, but through a series of transfigurations. We should not forget that the transfiguration to Ibn ʿArabī is an alternative word for the overflowing or emanation to Plotinus.