The Futuhat Foundation
A foundation, inshāʾAllāh, for the legacy of Muḥyiddīn Ibn al-ʿArabī’s great work, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkīyah (The Openings Revealed in Makkah).
Our Time
I understood the progression of understand, translate, and convey the Futūḥāt al-Makkīyah when I devoted myself to the work in 2012. I am seeing that the conveying of the counsel of Ḥaqq given to Ibn al-ʿArabī is now - almost eight hundred centuries after his lifetime. He conveyed the counsel to twenty-eight girls, women, and a freed male slave celebrated in his poetry (in the Dīwān published last year in a critical edition by ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Manṣūb) invisibly, through the sacred spiritual paths - in Islam, the ṭarīqat. This work is to bring forth the first ever complete translation and commentary – in English, The Openings Revealed in Makkah.
Ibn al-ʿArabī was speaking to a different audience. Contemporaries were speaking in the midnight after the Sun of the Prophet (peace be upon him) had set. In the darkness, religions and schools and spiritual paths solidified and did their best to guide the aspirants. This was not the moment of Ibn al-ʿArabī. He spoke and speaks to the people of the Night, of the Third Remaining Part of the Night, when our Cherisher descends to the sky of this world and speaks to us directly: ‘Is there anyone asking for their separation to be healed? Is there anyone turning to Me? Is there anyone asking of Me, that I may give to them?’
If this is the time which he identified as ‘our time’, the creative energy lies in the communities around the world, and it is you who are invited to read, study, view, hear, and learn; encourage, support, and contribute to the works springing from the fountain of the Futuhat Foundation.
- Shuʿayb Dr Eric Winkel
The Futuhat Foundation
This work is the first-ever translation and commentary of the entirety of Muḥyīddīn Ibn al-ʿArabī’s al-Futūḥāt al-Makkīyah, The Openings Revealed in Makkah, of this masterwork, a project of at least twenty years.
Our mission is to offer publications, courses, artistic productions and retreats inspired by the teachings of Ibn al-ʿArabī. By creating these avenues that promote self-discovery and hold the potential for openings and access to intrinsic knowledge, we are able to support the work of the Futuhat Foundation and the long-term vision of making Ibn al-Arabi’s teachings widely accessible to the world.
We envision the Futuhat Foundation to hold residences in the caldera of Bandung and a place in Europe, where writers, artists, students, and seekers from around the world come to explore, get inspired by, and study the treasure troves of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s life work. The Futuhat Foundation is a home to carry out Ibn al-ʿArabī’s legacy, inshāʾAllāh.
Muḥammad ibn al-ʿArabī
Muḥammad ibn al-ʿArabī (560-638 / 1165-1240) is the transmitter of what is variously called (in the sacred lineages) the secret, the inheritance, and the sealing of the Light of Muḥammad ṣallallāhu ʿalayhi wasallam (the honorific, May Allāh shower him with blessings and peace). His work, translated here as The Openings Revealed in Makkah, is the physical proof that he transmitted this inheritance successfully. At 10,000 pages in the original Arabic, the work has remained largely inaccessible, with only partial commentaries over the centuries and very incomplete translations into other languages.
Ibn al-ʿArabī’s intangible transmission has also been successfully accomplished, as evidenced by his presence in the spiritual, sacred lineages, the many paths of the Divine lovers - those connected with Islam and called in Arabic ṭarīqāt. This intangible transmission has flowed through the conferral of the cloak of honor on a number of recipients who were tasked to convey the message. In his collection of poetry, he presents more than twenty poems addressing these initial recipients; in the poems, he identifies only the girls and women, and a freed male slave.
Shuʿayb Dr Eric Winkel
Shuʿayb Dr Eric Winkel is a community-engaged scholar and translator. The practice of community-engaged scholarship includes translation and commentary, teaching, research, and creative work. He has studied al-Futūḥāt al-Makkīyah, The Openings Revealed in Makkah, for more than four decades, and since 2012, he has been translating full-time and dedicating his life work to The Openings. This work is supported by Pir Press, the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Order, and many other communities around the world.
Previously, during his tenure as Senior Research Fellow at the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies (Malaysia), he explored connections between Ibn al-ʿArabi’s vision and mathematics and physics developed after the 19th century. The mystical, strange world lbn al-ʿArabi describes may be read as also the strange realm of quantum physics and higher-dimensional, and fractal dimensional, topographies. As the author of books and monographs on lbn al- ʿArabi, Islamic law, and the new sciences, and articles examining lbn al- ʿArabi’s vision in light of contemporary mathematical physics, he is uniquely poised to connect these worlds. He has been appointed an honorary fellow of The Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi Society and The International Institute of Islamic Studies (IAIS).
His audience is international, and over the past decades he had given dars sessions on The Openings in Santa Fe, New Mexico, New York, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Bandung, Sri Lanka, Kerala, Oxford, Cambridge, London, Berlin, Morocco and Andalusia. If you are interested in his international dars sessions, mostly now on Zoom, please visit our events page.
About the Team
This foundation would not be possible without our Team. We have a copy editor and two proof editors in English and Arabic. We have a line-by-line course moderator. Shuʿayb Dr Eric Winkel is a dragoman of love. Next to translating, he also does the typesetting, layout and design of the books. Our art and educational director takes care of the website, gives general direction of the foundation, organises courses and events, and publishes digital contents across the channels. We thank our volunteers who have donated their precious skills, voices, and time to the foundation.