Ibn Arabi Quotes & Sayings

Do not praise your own faith exclusively so that you disbelieve all the rest. If you do this you will miss much good. Nay, you will miss the whole truth of the matter. God, the Omniscient and the Omnipresent, cannot be confined to any one creed, for He says in the Quran, wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah. Everybody praises what he knows. His God is his own creature, and in praising it, he praises himself. Which he would not do if he were just, for his dislike is based on ignorance. — Ibn Arabi

I was wedded to all the stars of the sky.There was not a single star left, and I married every one of them with great spiritual pleasure. Then I married the moon. — Ibn Arabi

Oh, her beauty
the tender maid! Its brilliance gives light like lamps to one travelling in the dark.
She is a pearl hidden in a shell of hair as black as jet,
A pearl for which Thought dives and remains unceasingly in the deeps of that ocean.
He who looks upon her deems her to be a gazelle of the sand-hills, because of her shapely neck and the loveliness of her gestures. — Ibn Arabi

My heart can be pasture for deer and a convent for monks, a temple for idols and a Kaaba for the pilgrims. It is both the tables of the Torah and the Koran. It professes the religion of Love wherever its caravans are heading. Love is my law. Love is my faith. — Ibn Arabi

Your personal nature seeks its paradise. — Ibn Arabi

How can the heart travel to Allah when it is chained by its desires — Ibn Arabi

My heart has become capable of every form: It is a pasture for gazelles And a monastery for Christian monks, And the pilgrim's Ka'ba, And the tablets of the Torah, And the book of the Koran. I follow the religion of Love: Whatever way love's camel takes, That is my religion, my faith. — Ibn Arabi

From my insufficiency to my perfection, and from my deviation to my equilibrium
From my sublimity to my beauty, and from my splendor to my majesty
From my scattering to my gathering, and from my rejection to my communion
From my baseness to my preciousness, and from my stones to my pearls
From my rising to my setting, and from my days to my nights
From my luminosity to my darkness, and from my guidance to my straying
From my perigee to my apogee, and from the base of my lance to its tip
From my waxing to my waning, and from the void of my moon to its crescent
From my pursuit to my flight, and from my steed to my gazelle
From my breeze to my boughs, and from my boughs to my shade
From my shade to my delight, and from my delight to my torment
From my torment to my likeness, and from my likeness to my impossibility
From my impossibility to my validity, and from my validity to my deficiency.
I am no one in existence but myself, — Ibn Arabi

The Real made me contemplate the light of the veils as the star of strong backing rose, and He said to me, "Do you know how many veils I have veiled you with?"
"No", I replied.
He said, "With seventy veils.
Even if you raise them you will not see Me, and if you do not raise them you will not see Me."
"If you raise them you will see Me and if you do not raise them you will see Me."
"Take care of burning yourself!"
"You are My sight, so have faith. You are My Face, so veil yourself — Ibn Arabi

I believe in the religion of Love, whatever direction its caravans may take, for Love is my religion and my faith. — Ibn Arabi

How can the heart travel to God, when it is chained by its desires? — Ibn Arabi

If you find it complicated to answer someone's question, do not answer it, for his container is already full and does not have room for the answer — Ibn Arabi

While you are alive, your worldly self is like a collector of benefits from Allah's bounties, which come to you from myriads of hands. — Ibn Arabi

Beware of confining yourself to a particular belief and denying all else, for much good would elude you - indeed, the knowledge of reality would elude you. Be in yourself a matter for all forms of belief, for God is too vast and tremendous to be restricted to one belief rather than another. — Ibn Arabi

The ignorant one does not see his ignorance as he basks in its darkness; nor does the knowledgeable one see his own knowledge, for he basks in its light — Ibn Arabi

Oh, Lord, nourish me not with love, but with the desire for love. — Ibn Arabi

Whoever builds his faith exclusively on demonstrative proofs and deductive arguments, builds a faith on which it is impossible to rely. For he is affected by the negativities of constant objections. Certainty(al-yaqin) does not derive from the evidences of the mind but pours out from the depths of the heart. — Ibn Arabi

God sleeps in the rock, dreams in the plant, stirs in the animal, and awakens in man. — Ibn Arabi

I am in love with no other than myself, and my very separation is my union ... I am my beloved and my lover; I am my knight and my maiden. — Ibn Arabi

I follow the Way of Love,
and where Love's caravan takes its path,
there is my religion, my faith. — Ibn Arabi

When you know yourself, your 'I'ness vanishes and you know that you and Allah are one and the same. — Ibn Arabi

In this I conformed to my usual manner of thinking in symbols; this because the things of the invisible world attract me more than those of actual life — Ibn Arabi

Deliver us, O Allah, from the Sea of Names. — Ibn Arabi

My heart can take on any form:
A meadow for gazelles,
A cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Ka'ba for the circling pilgrim,
The tables of the Torah,
The scrolls of the Quran.
My creed is Love;
Wherever its caravan turns along the way,
That is my belief,
My faith. — Ibn Arabi

I saw Divinity with the Eye of the Heart. I said, "Who are you. It said, "You. — Ibn Arabi

There was a time, when I blamed my companion if his religion did not resemble mine. Now, however, my heart accepts every form ... Love alone is my religion. — Ibn Arabi

Each person is oriented toward a quest for his personal invisible guide, or ... he entrusts himself to the collective, magisterial authority as the intermediary between himself and Revelation. — Ibn Arabi

The desires of this world are like sea water. The more you drink of them, the more you thirst. — Ibn Arabi