Tracking the Camels of Love

This chapter is based on a revised reading of Ibn ‘Arabi’s most famous verses from The Interpreter of Desires (Tarjumān al-ashwāq) that claim to follow “the religion of Love” via a heart “capable of every form.” It thus argues that modern Euro-American presuppositions regarding the nature of “religion” as a “system of beliefs” inform how the celebrated verses are commonly received and interpreted. While Ibn ‘Arabi’s claim to a heart “capable of every form” is synonymous with a claim to be capable of every belief, it is not tantamount to accepting the validity of every religion. Rather, the celebrated verses profess to inherit the comprehensive perfection of Muhammad as God’s beloved and, in so doing, reflect a discourse of religious absolutism and a subsumptive cosmology of power. It is precisely this cosmology of power that has been almost completely occluded by readings equating religion with belief.