Ibn-e- Arabi’s Viewpoint on The Position of Woman in the Arc of Ascent and the Arc of Descent

According to the theory of “manifestaon” in Islamic myscism, every creature is the manifestaon of the Glorious God’; everything manifests God within its existenal capacity. This fact affects the two arcs of ascent and descent. IbnArabi’s view of woman is a funcon of the sayings in these two arcs.His viewpoint on woman is totally indebted to the Holy Prophet’s (pbuh) character and His famous narraon in which he regards woman as his best loved worldly being. Ibn-e- Arabi believes that man and women had the same creaon in the arc of descent, and both deserve an equal perfecon, the posion of polarity, in the arc of ascent. Believing in Eve, the first woman in world, Ibn-e-Arabi holds that Eve’s correspondingenty is the Divine breath,which is the first emanaon and the Glorious God’sunique manifestaon.He argues that the other manifestaonsresult from her.Accordingly, in the arc of ascent, due to the natural delicacy of woman and her compability with the Supreme worlds,she can more quickly achievesupreme posions and ranks.At the end, he concludes that woman’s desirability for the Holy Prophet is because the scent of being was released from woman and the Glorious God’s great manifestaon occurred in woman. Using a descripve- analycal approach and drawing on the literature on the arc of ascent and descent in theorecal myscism, this paper infers and discovers the posion of woman in the view of Ibn-e-Arabi, and invesgates the dispersed evidence about woman in the works of this great mysc.