From the <EM>Meccan Openings</EM>: The Myth of the Origin of Religion and Law From the Meccan Openings: The Myth of the Origin of Religion and Law

Islam has produced no greater mystical theologian and philosophical visionary than Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-'Arabi (born in Muricia, 1165; died in Damascus, 1240). He synthesized Islamic law, theology, philosophy, mysticism, cosmology, psychology, and other sciences in a manner that has for the past seven hundred years wielded tremendous influence over Islam. His Meccan Openings (al-Futuhat al-makkiyya), which will fill more than fifteen thousand pages in its new edition, provides a few glimmers and flashes of the luminous sciences he acquired when God "opened" for him the door to the "Treasuries of Unseen Generosity." Ibn al-'Arabi wrote several hundred other works, at least three hundred of which are extant.