When fifteen years had elapsed, ‘Umar Ibnu ’l-Fáriḍ returned to Cairo. The people venerated him as a saint, and the reigning monarch, Malik al-Kámil, wished to visit him in person, but ‘Umar declined to see him, and rejected his bounty. "At most times," says the poet's son, "the Shaykh was in a state of bewilderment, and his eyes stared fixedly. He neither heard nor saw any one speaking to him. Now he would stand, now sit, now repose on his side, now lie on his back wrapped up like a dead man; and thus would he pass ten consecutive days, more or less, neither eating nor drinking nor speaking nor stirring." In 1231 a.d. he made the pilgrimage to Mecca, on which occasion he met his famous contemporary, Shihábu’ l-Dín Abú Ḥafṣ ‘Umar al-Suhrawardí. He died four years later, and was buried in the Qaráfa cemetery at the foot of Mount Muqaṭṭam.

His Díwánof mystical odes, which were first collected and published by his grandson, is small in extent compared with The poetry of Ibnu ’l-Fáriḍ. similar works in the Persian language, but of no unusual brevity when regarded as the production of an Arabian poet.737 Concerning its general character something has been said above (p. 325). The commentator, Ḥasan al-Búríní (õ 1615 a.d.), praises the easy flow ( insijàm) of the versification, and declares that Ibnu ’l-Fáriḍ "is accustomed to play with ideas in ever-changing forms, and to clothe them with splendid garments."738 His style, full of verbal subtleties, betrays the influence of Mutanabbí.739 The longest piece in the Díwánis a Hymn of Divine Love, entitled Naẓmu ’l-Sulúk('Poem on the Mystic's Progress'), and often called al-Tá’iyyatu ’l-Kubrá('The Greater Ode rhyming in t'), which has been edited with a German verse-translation by Hammer-Purgstall (Vienna, 1854). On account of this poem the author was accused of favouring the doctrine of ḥulúl, i.e., the incarnation of God in human beings. Another celebrated ode is the Khamriyya, or Hymn of Wine.740 The following versions will perhaps convey to English readers some faint impression of the fervid rapture and almost ethereal exaltation which give the poetry of Ibnu ’l-Fáriḍ a unique place in Arabic literature:—

"Let passion's swelling tide my senses drown!Pity love's fuel, this long-smouldering heart,Nor answer with a frown,When I would fain behold Thee as Thou art,' Thou shall not see Me.'741 O my soul, keep fastThe pledge thou gav'st: endure unfaltering to the last!For Love is life, and death in love the HeavenWhere all sins are forgiven.To those before and after and of this day,That witnesseth my tribulation, say,'By me be taught, me follow, me obey,And tell my passion's story thro' wide East and West.'With my Beloved I alone have beenWhen secrets tenderer than evening airsPassed, and the Vision blestWas granted to my prayers,That crowned me, else obscure, with endless fame,The while amazed betweenHis beauty and His majestyI stood in silent ecstasy,Revealing that which o'er my spirit went and came.Lo! in His face commingledIs every charm and grace;The whole of Beauty singledInto a perfect faceBeholding Him would cry,'There is no God but He, and He is the most High!'"742

Here are the opening verses of the Tá’iyyatu ’l-Ṣughrá, or 'The Lesser Ode rhyming in t,' which is so called in order to distinguish it from the Tá’iyyatu ’l-Kubrá:—

"Yea, in me the Zephyr kindled longing, O my loves, for you;Sweetly breathed the balmy Zephyr, scattering odours when it blew; Whispering to my heart at morning secret tales of those who dwell(How my fainting heart it gladdened!) nigh the water and the well;Murmuring in the grassy meadows, garmented with gentleness,Languid love-sick airs diffusing, healing me of my distress.When the green slopes wave before thee, Zephyr, in my loved Ḥijáz,Thou, not wine that mads the others, art my rapture's only cause.Thou the covenant eternal743 callest back into my mind,For but newly thou hast parted from my dear ones, happy Wind!Driver of the dun-red camels that amidst acacias bide,Soft and sofa-like thy saddle from the long and weary ride!Blessings on thee, if descrying far-off Túḍih at noonday,Thou wilt cross the desert hollows where the fawns of Wajra play,And if from ‘Urayḍ's sand-hillocks bordering on stony groundThou wilt turn aside to Ḥuzwá, driver for Suwayqa bound,And Ṭuwayli‘'s willows leaving, if to Sal‘ thou thence wilt ride—Ask, I pray thee, of a people dwelling on the mountain-side!Halt among the clan I cherish (so may health attend thee still!)And deliver there my greeting to the Arabs of the hill.For the tents are basking yonder, and in one of them is SheThat bestows the meeting sparely, but the parting lavishly.All around her as a rampart edge of sword and point of lance,Yet my glances stray towards her when on me she deigns to glance.Girt about with double raiment—soul and heart of mine, no less—She is guarded from beholders, veiled by her unveiledness.Death to me, in giving loose to my desire, she destineth;Ah, how goodly seems the bargain, and how cheap is Love for Death!744

Ibnu ’l-Fáriḍ came of pure Arab stock, and his poetry is thoroughly Arabian both in form and spirit. This is not the place to speak of the great Persian Ṣúfís, but Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr al-Ḥalláj, who was executed in the Caliphate of Muqtadir (922 a.d.), could not have been omitted here but for the fact that Professor Browne has already given an admirable account of him, to which I am unable to add anything of importance.745 The Arabs, however, have contributed to the history of Ṣúfiism another memorable name—Muḥyi’l-Dín Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí, whose life falls within the final century of the ‘Abbásid period, and will therefore fitly conclude the present chapter.746

Muḥyi ’l-Dín Muḥammad b. ‘Alí Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí (or Ibn ‘Arabí)747 was born at Mursiya (Murcia) in Spain on the 17th Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí. of Ramaḍán, 560 a.h. = July 29, 1165 a.d. From 1173 to 1202 he resided in Seville. He then set out for the East, travelling by way of Egypt to the Ḥijáz, where he stayed a long time, and after visiting Baghdád, Mosul, and Asia Minor, finally settled at Damascus, in which city he died (638 a.h. = 1240 a.d.). His tomb below Mount Qásiyún was thought to be "a piece of the gardens of Paradise," and was called the Philosophers' Stone.748 It is now enclosed in a mosque which bears the name of Muḥyi ’l-Dín, and a cupola rises over it.749 We know little concerning the events of his life, which seems to have been passed chiefly in travel and conversation with Ṣúfís and in the composition of his voluminous writings, about three hundred in number according to his own computation. Two of these works are especially celebrated, and have caused Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí to be regarded as the greatest of all Muḥammadan mystics—the Futúḥát al-Makkiyya, or 'Meccan Revelations,' and the Fuṣúṣú ’l-Ḥikam, or 'Bezels of Philosophy.' The Futúḥátis a huge treatise in five hundred and sixty chapters, containing a complete system of mystical science. The author relates that he saw Muḥammad in the World of Real Ideas, seated on a throne amidst angels, prophets, and saints, and received his command to discourse on the Divine mysteries. At another time, while circumambulating the Ka‘ba, he met a celestial spirit wearing the form of a youth engaged in the same holy rite, who showed him the living esoteric Temple which is concealed under the lifeless exterior, even as the eternal substance of the Divine Ideas is hidden by the veils of popular religion—veils through which the lofty mind must penetrate, until, having reached the splendour within, it partakes of the Divine nature and beholds what no mortal eye can endure to look upon. Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí immediately fell into a swoon. When he came to himself he was instructed to contemplate the visionary form and to write down the mysteries which it would reveal to his gaze. Then the youth entered the Ka‘ba with Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí, and resuming his spiritual aspect, appeared to him on a three-legged steed, breathed into his breast the knowledge of all things, and once more bade him describe the heavenly form in which all mysteries are enshrined.750 Such is the reputed origin of the 'Meccan Revelations,' of which the greater portion was written in the town where inspiration descended on Muḥammad six hundred years before. The author believed, or pretended to believe, that every word of them was dictated to him by supernatural means. The Fúṣúṣ, a short work in twenty-seven chapters, each of which is named after one of the prophets, is no less highly esteemed, and has been the subject of numerous commentaries in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish.