Muhyi al-Din Abu’ ‘Adbullah Muhammad ibn ‘Ali ibn ‘Arabi al-Hatimi al-Ta’i (d.1240 AD), al-Mabahith al-halabiyah, a treatise on mysticism, Spain or North Africa, 13th century

Arabic manuscript on paper, 89 leaves, 25 to 28 lines to the page, written in fine Maghribi script in brown ink with titles in larger darker script, occasional contemporaneous marginal annotations, with 11 mathematical and geometrical diagrams, a seal impression on f.79b, probably contemporaneous brown stamped morocco binding with tooled medallions and border, with flap

In very good overall condition, the margin trimmed and the first 7 folios loose, the margins are clean and very minor stains throughout, occasional smudges to the ink, the binding worn. As viewed.
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Ibn 'Arabi was an Andalusian scholar, Sufi mystic and philosopher. He studied in Seville before embarking on the Hajj in 1201 AD. He lived in Mecca for three years and it was during his stay there that he began writing one of his most important works, al-Futuha al-makkiyah which discusses a wide range of topics ranging from mystical philosophy to Sufi mysticism including his visions and dreams. He travelled extensively in Syria, Palestine, Iraq and Anatolia and died in Damascus in 1240 AD.

Ibn 'Arabi was a copious author and between two hundred and three hundred works have been attributed to him. There is no agreement on the exact number of works composed and a systematic study of his corpus operae in English has not been published yet. Brockelmann lists two hundred and thirty-nine works under his name, while three lists, said to have been drafted by Ibn 'Arabi himself, have survived but each with a different quantity (The Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol.III, p.708). The present title is not recorded in Brockelmann: GAL, I. 447; suppl. I. 799, and appears to be an unrecorded work.

A catalogue of Ibn ‘Arabi works published in Cairo in 2001 lists al-Mabahith al-halabiyah among his works. However, a note points out that the philosophical approach in this manuscript is different from that known to have been employed by Ibn ’Arabi’s and thus it is excluded a certain attribution (O. Yahia and A.M. Al-Taib, Works of Ibn ‘Arabi , their History and their Classification, Cairo, 2001, p.539).

Similar bindings to that of the present work, with a continuous pattern of impressions in the border and a central roundel with interlacing geometrical patterns, have been attributed to fourteenth-century Egypt or Syria (Haldane 1983, pp.28-33).