Ibn Sab'in ( ') was an Arab Sufi, philosopher from al-Andalus in the west land of Islamic world. He was born in 1217 in modern-day Ricote in Murcia. It has been suggested that he was a Neoplatonic philosopher, a Peripatetic philosopher, a Pythagorean philosopher, a Hermeticist, an alchemist, a heterodox Sufi, a pantheist, though none of these adequately characterise Ibn Sab'in. He was also known for his knowledge of esotericism and was well versed in the knowledge of Islam and of other religions.
From his time and continuing through to today, Ibn Sabÿën has been criticized for his views, though often by detractors who did so without an in-depth knowledge of his works, as many of the accusations against Ibn Sabÿën are invalidated by Ibn SabÿënâÂÂs own writings, and suggest that some of our authorâÂÂs critics were not even familiar with his works.
Ibn Sabÿën is most famously remembered for his replies to the questions sent to him by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and published as al-Kalam 'ala al-Masa'il as-Siqiliya (Discourse on the Sicilian Questions) which were first popularised in the West in 1853 by Sicilian Orientalist Michele Amari who recognised Ibn Sab'in as the author, among others, of the responses to the Sicilian Questions.
In addition to the Sicilian Question, his other major work and longest is Budd al-Arif (The Essential of the Gnostic), which is extant in manuscript and an edited version. His writing style has been described as composite and cryptic, which some of the modern publishers had difficulty understanding. He authored a number of epistles and books, some of which have been published by Abderrahman Badawi among others.
In his work Bud al-'Arif (The Essential of the Gnostic), Ibn Sab'in virulently criticized Averroes and considered him a fanatic Aristotelian who always sought to validate Aristotle's ideas even when they were absurd. In this work, Ibn Sab'in states:
In approximately 668/1270 Ibn Sabÿën died in Mecca, under suspicious circumstances. There are two descriptions of his death, one that states that he was poisoned and another that reports that he committed suicide. However there is evidence indicating that the story of Ibn SabÿënâÂÂs suicide was fabricated. Casewit states that âÂÂhis alleged suicide seems untenable firstly because it was related by one of Ibn SabÿënâÂÂs foes, and secondly because suicide is wholly contrary to both Islamic law and Ibn SabÿënâÂÂs philosophical beliefs.â Despite the mutually exclusive versions, it is the more controversial suicide adopted by Massignon and Corbin that is repeatedly stated, and even fictionalised by Bensalem Himmich in A Muslim Suicide.