5.4.5.10 - We mentioned in section

efishaq-al-rumi above.

The sources agree that Sadruddin was born somewhere in the Seljuq Sultanate of Rum, between 604/1207 and 608/1211. However, al-Aqsarayi gives his exact date of birth as 22 Jumada II 605, corresponding to the first of January 1209. He was seven or eight years old when his father died, which would mean that it was about 613/1216 when he came under Ibn al-Arabi’s direct care. When he was an estimated 14 or 15, he was with Ibn al-Arabi in Egypt when the Shaykh entrusted his education for a time to his friend Awhaduddin al-Kirmani, whom we mention in section

efal-kirmani below. One of the early sources, Manaqib Awhad al-din Kirmani, relates a touching speech made by Ibn al-Arabi as he passed Sadr al-din into Kirmani’s care:

You know the goodwill and affection I feel for Sadr al-Din. He is like a real son to me. What am I saying? He is far dearer to me than a son by the flesh. We are linked to each other by various kinds of kinship – first he was a child, then a disciple, then a student – and by a companionship which has spanned several years. I have fulfilled all the proper duties of a father towards his son, of a master towards his disciple, and of a teacher towards his student, and I have obtained for him the fruit of companionship and understanding of such a kind that no further obstacles remain. I have adorned his outer being with knowledge and with virtue; as for his inner being – that is, as regards the secrets of Reality and the method of following the Way – that also has been well and truly accomplished, thanks to guidance and good direction.

[Manaqib Awhad al-din Kirmani, ed. Foruzanfar (Tehran, 1347/1969), p. 85; translation in Addas, Quest, pp. 228–9. This anonymous Persian text was written in the 7th century hegira, either during al-Qunawi’s lifetime or shortly afterwards. Like all manaqib texts, it is a collection of anecdotes designed to elevate the subject rather than to create an accurate historical record, and this speech shows every sign of having been amended in hindsight.]

Kirmani, who had also been a companion of Majduddin, was a great spiritual master in his own right, originally the son of a Seljuk prince in the town of Kirman in Persia and a disciple of Ruknuddin al-Sijasi of the Suhrawardiyya order. He was also a poet in the Persian manner, and his knowledge and affiliation with the traditions of Iran gave Sadr al-din a knowledge which complemented the instruction he received from Ibn al-Arabi.

According to the Manaqib, Sadr al-din himself used to say that he had tasted the milk from the breasts of two mothers, i.e. Ibn al-Arabi and al-Kirmani, the Arab and the Persian.

The immediate cause of the transfer to Kirmani seems to have been a journey to the Hijaz which Ibn al-Arabi wished Sadr al-din to make – presumably to do the pilgrimage. Subsequently, the two of them visited Shiraz in Iran, which was the home of Sadr al-din’s ancestors, staying for a period of around two years. [Addas, Quest, p. 230.]

We do not know the date when these events happened, although Addas argues convincingly that it must have been before 620/1223, when Ibn al-Arabi moved to Damascus.[The death of Kayka’us in 1221 and the ascension of his much less sympathetic brother, ’Ala al-din Kaykubad, forced Ibn al-Arabi to leave Anatolia and settle in Damascus at this time; as far as we know, this marked the end of his traveling.]

It is known, however, that in 624/1227 Sadr al-din was back with Ibn al-Arabi in Damascus studying hadith with him, as there is a series of auditions over a period of two months on a collection compiled by the great Maghribi traditionalist Abu Muhammad al-Azdi al-Ishbili.[26]

In the following two years, Sadr al-din, no doubt under the direction of his master, continued to build on his knowledge of the traditional sciences: there are records of study sessions with Kamal al-din al-Qafsi, known as al-Iskandarani, in 624/1227 in Malatya, and an ijaza for Muslim’s Sahih from Shaykh Sharaf al-din al-Sulami in Aleppo in 626/1229.[27]

It is not until 626/1229, when he would have been around twenty-one, that we have any evidence of Sadr al-din studying Ibn al-Arabi’s own works. The first manuscript on which his name appears, along with six other people, is Kitab al-Abadila in 22 Dhul-Hijja 626/11 November 1229, in what was quite possibly the first reading of the work.[Shehid Ali 2826, fol. 15b]

He then proceeded, in the following four or five years, to undergo an intense period of study under the direct supervision of Ibn al-Arabi at his house in Damascus. This involved him reading more than forty works, including the first recension of the Futuhat in Ibn al-Arabi’s handwriting, comprising twenty volumes.[See Elmore, ’Study List’, pp. 175–6]

Remarkably, we have a detailed record of at least some aspects of this total immersion in the form of a series of study lists, dated between Muharram 627/November 1229 and Jumada II 629/March 1232, written out by himself and signed by Ibn al-Arabi, who gave him a certificate, or permission to teach, the listed books.[Yusuf Aga 7838, fols. 247a–249a; see Elmore, ’Study List’, pp. 169–76, for a detailed description of this section.]

In addition, several manuscripts have survived which give information about the individual sessions that made up this education: for example, readings of Kitab al-Azama with Ibn al-Arabi in 627/1229,[Veliyuddin 1759, fol. 146b] and of Kitab al-Muashsharat in 630/1232.[Halet 245, fol. 260b]

The study of these works seems to have consisted largely of reading them aloud to Ibn al-Arabi (as he states, for example, in the case of al-Tanazzulat al-Mawsiliyya and Mawaqii al-Nujum in Rabii II 628/February 1231) or the Shaykh reciting to him (as with Tarjuman al-Ashwaq in the same month).[Elmore, ’Study List’, p. 175]

In some cases, he also made copies, as with Kitab Anqaa Mughrib and Kitab al-Isra, which he wrote out and had verified in 629–30/1232–33,[Ragip Pa?a 1453, fols. 81a–132a/133a–180b] or the Fusus al-Hikam, which he copied in 630/1233.[Evkaf 1933; see sama’ and verifications on fols. 1a and 78a]

There is also an extant copy of al-Fihris dated 627/1230,[Yusuf Aga 7838, fols. 188b–193b] and an undated copy of Mawaqii al-Nujum in his handwriting, which it would be reasonable to assume also came from this period.[Yusuf Aga 5001; fols. 1a–165a, see sama’ on 155a]

There are several things to note about this period of training. Firstly, it is clear that Sadr al-din was already being prepared as Ibn al-Arabi’s spiritual heir. The works on the study lists, whilst numbering only about half of the Shaykh’s verified output, include all the major long works, such as Ruh al-Quds, ’Anqa’ mughrib, al-Tanazzulat al-Mawsiliyya, K. al-Tajalliyat and Diwan, as well as the texts already mentioned. Further, Ibn al-Arabi’s permissions include a general ijaza certifying that:

Sadr al-din Muhammad, son of the late, kindly companion Majd al-din Ishaq ... al-Qunawi ... has studied under me all the books named above and I grant him certification to freely relate them on my authority, along with all of my writings and the entirety of my authorised transmissions of every different type.[See Elmore, ’Study List’, p. 171]

This clearly presages Sadr al-din’s role as Ibn al-Arabi’s principal heir, one aspect of which was his role as his literary executor. It seems that many of the original texts of the Shaykh’s works eventually came into Sadr al-din’s care; for instance, al-Habashi’s (d.618/1221) copy of Ruh al-quds carries a note indicating that it ended up in Konya,[41] presumably bequeathed to him after his companion’s death, and a note in Ibn al-Arabi’s hand on the title page of the autograph Futuhat tells us that the original of the second recension was specifically gifted to him.[42] These books, along with many others, and including the precious copy of the Fusus written in his own hand, were preserved through a waqf (endowment) which he established. After his death they were kept in the mosque next to his tomb in Konya until the dispersion of the private foundations by Atatürk in 1927.[Many of the books were transferred to the Yusuf Aga library in Konya, and most collections with the reference ’Yusuf Aga’ in this article came from the Qunawi waqf. See the article by Bekir ?ahin in this volume, pp. 147–54] This waqf played an essential role in the passing down of Ibn al-Arabi’s heritage, acting for more than 750 years as a centre which was visited by generations of followers in order to make copies of the works. The importance of this can only be understood if it is also remembered that, unlike Europe, the Islamic world did not embrace the printing press until the 19th century, and so direct copying from manuscript was the only means of dissemination.[44] Our work on the early manuscripts reveals that there are an exceptional number of texts from Ibn al-Arabi’s lifetime which have survived compared to other comparable authors of his day,[45] and this is without doubt due to the arrangements which Sadr al-din put in place.

Secondly, there is the attention shown by Ibn al-Arabi himself to the annotation of these study lists, evidenced by the precise listing and dating to the very day of the ijaza s. This is another unique feature of the akbarian tradition which is also seen on the manuscripts, where the dates and places of writing or subsequent copying, plus the names of all those attending readings, were meticulously recorded. The habit was continued by Sadr al-din himself, who even employed it when recording his own spiritual experiences in al-Nafahat al-ilahiyya, drawing the comment from Todd that ’his precise chronicle of epiphanies and intuitions is quite unlike anything else in the annals of Sufi literature’.[Todd, ’Writing in the Book’, p. 7] Two conclusions can be drawn from this: firstly, that in this tradition, the written text has a very important place, in contrast with other ways in which the oral transmission from teacher to student is given priority; and secondly, that both Ibn al-Arabi and Sadr al-din had their eyes on the future, when the verification of the texts would be required.

In fact, the hand of destiny was over their relationship from its very beginning. Sadr al-din was later to reveal to his closest disciple, Mu’ayyid al-din al-Jandi (d.700/1300), a vision which Ibn al-Arabi related to him, which had happened even before the latter left the Maghrib:

God ... showed me all my future states, both internal and external, right through to the end of my days. I even saw that your father, Ishaq b. Muhammad, would be my companion, and you as well. I was made aware of your states, the knowledge you would acquire, your experiences and stations, and of the revelations, theophanies and everything else with which God was to grace you.[From Sharh Fusus al-hikam, ed. Ashtiyani (Mashhad, 1982), pp. 215–20; translation by Addas, Quest, p. 111]

The Death of King Kikaws 616/1120

=\%This year King died mostly, Azzedine Kikaws Ibn Queijsro Ibn Kalag Arslan owner of Konya and Oqasra, Malatya and their Byzantine lands, and was the cause of his death of tuberculosis. Before his death he had agreed with Nasser Eddin owner Amed and Mudhaffar religion owner Irbil attack on King Ashraf and Badr al-Din connector. Fassar Kikaws to Malatya to prevent King Ashraf out for walk to Mosul rescue his companion Badr al-Din, when intensified by the disease returned them died and the King after brother Keykubad who had been imprisoned for taking the country in 607/1211, and had advised him some of his companions to kill him did not do when he fell ill him out of jail and take the pledge of allegiance to him because his children were not fit for the king a young age.