Ibn 'arabi Society

Ahmad Sukkar has recently completed the Imam Bukhari Visiting Research Fellowship at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies with a project about the intellectual history of Islam, focusing on the relationship between Islamic philosophy and mysticism. He holds a PhD from Birkbeck College, University of London. He is currently preparing his doctoral thesis for publication as a monograph on architectural humanities, along with another monograph on human reality. In collaboration with Professor Samer Akkach (University of Adelaide), he is working towards publishing a critical edition of early modern Arabic text on human reality upon which his doctorate was based. His publications in English include 'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi of Damascus (d. 1143/1731) and the Mawlawi Sufi Tradition which appears in the Mawlana Rumi Review (2014) and can be downloaded from www.academia.edu/6413580.

Sara Sviri has since 2002 been a distinguished visiting professor in the Department of Arabic and the Department of Comparative Religions at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Previously she taught at the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College London and at the University of Oxford. She retired from academic teaching in 2012 and has since been engaged in lecturing and teaching on Sufism outside of academia, in Israel and elsewhere. Her fields of study are Islamic mysticism, mystical philosophy and psychology, comparative and phenomenological aspects of Islam, the formative period of Islamic mysticism, and related topics. Papers on these topics have been published in many academic publications and can be viewed on www.academia.edu. Her book The Taste of Hidden Things: Images on the Sufi Path was published in 1997 in the USA. In 2008, Tel-Aviv University Press published her extensive Sufi Anthology in Hebrew.

Todd Lawson is emeritus professor of Islamic Thought at the University of Toronto where he taught for 25 years. He has published widely on Qur'an commentary (tafsir) the Qur'an as literature, Sufism, Shi'i Islam and the Babi and Bahai traditions. His book on Jesus in Islamic thought, The Crucifixion and the Qur'an was published in 2009 (Oneworld), his Gnostic Apocalypse and Islam in 2011 (Routledge). He is now writing a book on the Qur'an as sacred epic. He lives in Montreal.

Sa'diyya Shaikh teaches at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. She has an interest in Sufism and its implications for Islamic feminism and feminist theory. She teaches courses in religion, gender, Islamic mysticism and the psychology of religion. Her book "Sufi Narratives of Intimacy: Ibn 'Arabi, Gender and Sexuality" is published by the UNC.

Pierre Lory pursued his studies in political science and in Arabic literature in Paris. He moved to the Middle East, where he lived in Lebanon and Syria while completing advanced coursework in Arabic. He decided to focus his research on the history of Islamic spirituality and Sufism. He earned a Masters on mystical exegesis in the Koran, and a PhD on Arabic alchemical texts (1981). He then pursued further post-graduate work in Islamic Studies, receiving a "Doctorat d’état". He became Professor at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Sorbonne) in 1991. His participation in international conferences, panels, and research groups frequently takes him to the Middle East, North Africa, Iran. He was also director of the department of Arabic studies at the Institut Français du Proche-Orient, in Damascus, from 2007 to 2011. He has published several books and many articles on Sufism, Arabic alchemy, Islamic esotericism.

Todd Lawson is emeritus professor of Islamic Thought at the University of Toronto where he taught for 25 years. He has published widely on Qur’an commentary (tafsir) the Qur'an as literature, Sufism, Shi'i Islam and the Babi and Bahai traditions. His book on Jesus in Islamic thought, The Crucifixion and the Qur'an was published in 2009 (Oneworld), his Gnostic Apocalypse and Islam in 2011 (Routledge). The article, "Qur'an and Epic" appeared recently in The Journal of Qur'anic Studies (2014: 16.1). This and other of his publications are available at www.toddlawson.ca. He is now writing a book on the Qur'an as sacred epic. He lives in Montreal

Zahra' Langhi is a researcher in Islamic history, Sufism, metaphysics, and female spirituality in comparative religions. She has an MA from the American University in Cairo on Sitt 'Ajam's Commentary of Ibn Arabi's Contemplation of the Holy Mysteries and the Rising of the Divine Lights. She is also the co-founder of of the Libyan Women's Platform for Peace, a socio-political movement which aims at peace building, inclusivity and gender equality. She is a member of the Libyan National Dialogue and has taken part in the peace talks. Her MA thesis on Sitt 'Ajam, A Muslim Woman Gnostic of the Middle Ages, is to be published by Fons Vitae.

James W. Morris, Ph.D., currently teaches Islamic studies at Boston College; he lectures widely on Sufism, the Islamic humanities, Islamic philosophy, the Qur'an, Shiite thought, and cinema and spiritual teaching. His many books include: The Reflective Heart: Discovering Spiritual Intelligence in Ibn 'Arabi's 'Meccan Illuminations'; and the forthcoming Approaching Ibn 'Arabi: Foundations, Contexts, Interpretations

Zahra' Langhi is a researcher in Islamic history, Sufism, metaphysics, and female spirituality in comparative religions. She is also the co-founder of of the Libyan Women's Platform for Peace, and is a member of the Libyan National Dialogue. Todd Lawson has published widely on Qur'an commentary, the Qur'an as literature, Sufism, Shi'i Islam and the Babi and Bahai traditions. His book on Jesus in Islamic thought, The Crucifixion and the Qur'an was published in 2009, his Gnostic Apocalypse and Islam in 2011

William C. Chittick is professor of religious studies at Stony Brook University. He is author and translator of many books and articles on Sufism and Islamic philosophy, the most recent of which are Divine Love: Islamic Literature and the Path to God and Unveiling the Mysteries

Cecilia Twinch is a Senior Research Fellow of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society, Oxford. Besides working as a teacher, translator and editor, she has written numerous articles and has lectured on Ibn 'Arabi and mysticism worldwide. She has studied at Cambridge University and the Beshara School. Her publications include an English translation of Ibn 'Arabi's Contemplation of the Holy Mysteries and a new translation of Know yourself: An explanation of the oneness of being (Ibn 'Arabi/Balyani).

Robert Abdul Hayy Darr has been a student of the spiritual culture of Islam for 45 years. In the late 1960s, he studied North Indian classical music at the Ali Akbar Khan School of Music in California. By the early 1980s, Darr began studying Persian literature where he first encountered the teachings of Ibn 'Arabi in the works of Abdurrahman Jami of Herat. This began a life-long interest in the Shaykh's profound teachings. In 1987, Darr met Afghanistan's poet laureate in exile, Ustad Khalilullah Khalili and this friendship led to his English translation of the poet's quatrains in 1989. From 1988-2007, Darr was tutored in Persian miniature painting by Ustad Homayon Etemadi, Afghanistan's last court painter and royal librarian. Darr was the disciple of the Afghan Sufi poet Raz Mohammed Zaray from 1992 until the poet's death in 2010.

CYRUS ALI ZARGAR is an associate professor of religion at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. His book, Sufi Aesthetics: Beauty, Love, and the Human Form in the Writings of Ibn 'Arabi and 'Iraqi, was published in 2011 by the University of South Carolina Press.

MARIA DAKAKE, researches and publishes on Islamic intellectual history, Quranic studies, Shi'ite and Sufi traditions, and women's spirituality and religious experience. She has just completed work on a major colloaborative project to produce the first HarperCollins Study Quran, a verse-by-verse commentary on the Quranic text

MOHAMMED RUSTOM is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at Carleton University. He is the author of the award-winning book The Triumph of Mercy: Philosophy and Scripture in Mulla Sadra and Assistant Editor of The Study Quran: A New Translation with Notes and Commentary (Editor-in-Chief, Seyyed Hossein Nasr).

Zachary Markwith is a doctoral student and instructor at the Graduate Theological Union where he specializes in early Islamic spirituality and comparative religious studies. He is the author of One God, Many Prophets: the Universal Wisdom of Islam, and is writing his dissertation on sanctity in the life and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad.

Michael Sells is Professor of Islamic History and Literature at the University of Chicago. He teaches courses on the Qur'an, Islamic love poetry, comparative mystical literature, Arabic Sufi poetry, Arabic religious texts, and Ibn 'Arabi. His publications include: Approaching the Quran: the Early Revelations (2007) and Mystical Languages of Unsaying (1994). He is also well-known for his translations of Arabic poetry including Desert Tracings: Six Classic Arabian Odes (1989) and Stations of Desire - Love Elegies from Ibn 'Arabi And New Poems (2000). John Mercer is an actor and writer, and formerly the Secretary of the Ibn 'Arabi Society and a founding member

Michael Sells is Professor of Islamic History and Literature at the University of Chicago. He teaches courses on the Qur'an, Islamic love poetry, comparative mystical literature, Arabic Sufi poetry, Arabic religious texts, and Ibn 'Arabi. His publications include: Approaching the Quran: the Early Revelations (2007) and Mystical Languages of Unsaying (1994). He is also well-known for his translations of Arabic poetry including Desert Tracings: Six Classic Arabian Odes (1989) and Stations of Desire - Love Elegies from Ibn 'Arabi And New Poems (2000)

Jaume Flaquer is a Jesuit priest and Professor of Interreligious Dialogue in the Faculty of Theology of Catalonia in Barcelona. He holds a PhD in Islamic Studies from the Sorbonne; his thesis was on Jesus according to the Sufi mystic Ibn 'Arabi. Publications include Christianity and Fundamentalism (1997) and Travelling Lives (2007). He gave a paper at the Second International Symposium of the MIAS-Latina in 2013 on The Spiritual Qualities of Jesus according to Ibn 'Arabi.

Stephen Hirtenstein has been editor of the Society’s Journal for 30 years. He is co-founder and director of Anqa Publishing and author of The Unlimited Mercifier, a spiritual biography of Ibn 'Arabi. He has translated the Mishkat al-Anwar, Ibn 'Arabi’s collection of hadith qudsi, and three of Ibn 'Arabi's shorter treatises including The Four Pillars of Spiritual Transformation (2008). He has lectured around the world and leads courses at the University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education. He was awarded the first Tarjuman Prize by MIAS-Latina in 2012 (along with Maurice Gloton)