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Article: New evidence on the early life of Ibn al-Arabi.
- Article from:
- The Journal of the American Oriental Society
- Article date:
- April 1, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 American Oriental Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Apart from the many valuable autobiographical notes to be found throughout Ibn al-Arabi's literary corpus, a certain fanciful impression later developed around this textual/factual core, rather like the legenda aurea of the haloed Christian mystics, according to which Ibn al-Arabi's family belonged to the noble ruling class of Andalusian society. This romantic notion apparently first crystallized in the ninth/fifteenth century account of the avidly polemical hagiographer, al-Qari al-Baghdadi, entitled Al-Durr al-thamin fi manaqib Muhyi 'l-Din,(1) in which the young Sufi is presented as "one of the sons of the rulers, notables and chiefs of that time." While it is unlikely ...