The Horizons of Being explores the teachings of Ibn al-ʿArabī by examining Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī’s (d. 751/1350) Prolegomena to his commentary on the Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, popularly known as the Muqaddimat al-Qayṣarī. A masterpiece of Sufism, the Muqaddima is both a distillation of the Fuṣūṣ and a summary of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s entire metaphysical worldview. As such, it is a foundational text that delves into the most important subjects characterizing the philosophical Sufi tradition: Being, God’s attributes, divine knowledge, the universal worlds, unveiling, creation and the microcosm, the perfect human, the origin and return of the spirit, prophethood and sainthood. The present edition is a complete translation of the Muqaddima and a commentary that incorporates the ideas of the main exponents of this tradition.

Mukhtar H. Ali, Ph.D. (2007) University of California, Berkeley, is currently Research Fellow at the Warburg Institute, the University of London. He specializes in Sufism, Islamic philosophy and ethics, and has published widely in various peer-reviewed venues. He has also translated several works in classical and contemporary Islamic metaphysics, which include The Principles of Correspondences (2013) and The New Creation (2018).

Students and scholars specializing in the field of Islamic studies, Sufism/mysticism, theology, philosophy, Ibn ʿArabī studies, Shiʿism and comparative religion will find this edition highly relevant.