The Nightfolk: Ibn 'Arabi Behind the Veil of Night (1)

By: Dunja Rasic

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Synopsis: This story begins with a divine unveiling: In 1220, a mysterious youth took the Sufi scholar, poet, and philosopher Muhyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī behind the veil of the night. There, Ibn ʿArabī first came face to face with advanced and morally ambiguous spiritual practitioners known as the Nightfolk. In The Nightfolk, Duja Rašić offers a pioneering historical and conceptual analysis of the once-widespread beliefs about the night and its people in Muslim cultures and societies. Drawing on a wealth of primary source materials, Rašić traces these beliefs from their origins in the seventh century to their most prominent form in the thirteenth-century works of Ibn ʿArabī. Re-examining common notions of spiritual authority, ascension, self-isolation, moral choice, and transgression in Muslim cultures and societies, The Nightfolk is a crucial read for those interested in philosophical Sufism and Ibn ʿArabī’s attempts to bridge the gap between the visible world and the realms of the unseen.