Appreciating Knots: An Islamic Approach to Religious Diversity

Abstract

As an Islamicist who has frequently taught courses that deal with the beliefs and practices of various religions, I have often been faced with the problem of conflicting truth claims. In trying to find a way to give all sides their due, I have drawn from the resources of my own speciality, paying special attention to the teachings of the most widely influential Muslim thinker of the past seven hundred years, Ibn al-’Arabī (d. 1240), known to his followers as al-Shaykh al-Akbar, ‘The greatest master’. Although usually called a ‘Sufi’, this should not suggest that he is peripheral to the Islamic tradition. Quite the contrary, the epithet implies that he embodies Islamic faith and practice to their fullest.¹ In what follows I try to bring out certain features of his perspective that have an immediate and obvious relevance to the theological issues which arise because of religious diversity. What makes this approach ‘Islamic’ is the sources of its basic ideas. The adjective does not imply any privileged status for the religion established by the Qur’ān.