Ibn ʿArabī and Mystical Disruptions of Gender: Theoretical Explorations in Islamic Feminism

Abstract

Drawing on the work of thirteenth-century Andalusian Sufi Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240), this article explores the ways in which mystical ideas present a radically destabilizing view of human nature. Bringing Ibn ʿArabī’s ideas into a contemporary feminist conversation on gender, I theorize gender, arguing that his mystical method pushes the reader to the limits of a binary and patriarchal rationality, resulting in a productive entanglement of normative gender categories. Paradox, ambivalence, and contradiction—organic elements of Ibn ʿArabī’s Sufi epistemology—facilitate generative spaces of tension that creatively interrupt fixed conceptions of gender. I argue that within this Sufi cosmology, apophatic modes of being demand an existential mode of receptivity, fluidity, and constant movement—all of which can be applied to critiquing gender hierarchies and heteronormativities within Muslim traditions while reimagining more capacious alternatives. The article contributes to a larger Islamic feminist project of retrieving a creative, expansive, and inclusive Muslim archive while making connections to broader feminist theories in contemporary scholarship, including the ideas of Judith Butler, Luce Irigaray, and Catherine Keller.