Inscriptions of Wisdom

“Thanks to Mukhtar H. Ali’s laborious efforts, we now have a complete translation of Jāmī’s masterpiece of philosophical Sufism known as Naqd al-nuṣūṣ, which itself is a commentary upon Ibn ʿArabī’s own summary of his extremely influential Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam. One of the great merits of Jāmī’s work is that it forms a veritable anthology of the mainstream tradition of the School of Ibn ʿArabī, citing extensively from its major representatives such as Qūnawī, Kāshānī, and Qayṣarī. Inscriptions of Wisdom therefore offers contemporary readers a lively presentation of a major Sufi metaphysical text with its robust commentarial procedure, spiritual teachings, and various layers of sophisticated argumentation on full display.” — Mohammed Rustom, author of Inrushes of the Heart: The Sufi Philosophy of ʿAyn al-Quḍāt

Mukhtar H. Ali is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of Philosophical Sufism: An Introduction to the School of Ibn al-ʿArabī and The Horizons of Being: The Metaphysics of Ibn al-ʿArab in the “Muqaddimat al-Qaysòar.”