Abd-al-karim Jili

عبدالكريم جيلى Abd-al-karim Jili (1365-1424 [Abd-al-karim Jili is also listed as dying between 1408 and 1417; but Titus Burckhardt established these dates.] ), was the Sufi author of "Al-Insan-ul-Kamil" ("The Perfect Man").

Abd-al-karim Jili was also a Sheikh, a descendant of the great Sayyiduna Abdul Qadir Jelani. He studied in Yemen from 1393 to 1403, and wrote more than thirty works. [ [http://www.salaam.co.uk/knowledge/biography/viewentry.php?id=940 "Jili Al Abdul Karim Qutbuddin Ibn Ibrahim" "Salaam Biographical Dictionary"] ;]

He is the foremost systematizer and one of the greatest exponents of the work of Ibn Arabi. His book, "The Perfect Man", is an explanation of Ibn Arabi’s teachings on the structure of reality and human perfection; it is held to be one of the masterpieces of Sufi literature in its own right. [Peters, F.E. (1990) "Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: The Classical Texts and Their Interpretation, Volume III: The Works of the Spirit" Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, p.254-257;] [ [http://www.sunnirazvi.org/qadiri/ego/carnal.htm "The Qadiriya Sufi Way" Sunni Razvi Society] ] Abd-al-karim Jili conceived of the Absolute Being as a Self, a line of thinking which later influenced the 20th century Indian Muslim philosopher and poet Allama Iqbal. [Allama Iqbal in his letter dated 24 January 1921 to R.A. Nicholson ("Letters of Iqbal" Iqbal Academy, Lahore (1978), pp. 141-42);]

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