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4.1.2 - In the City of Salé (597/1200)

In any case, whether he came by land or by sea, Shaykh Muhyiddin exited his isolation and his touring, and he left Andalusia after he bid farewell to his shaykhs and companions, and now he had to say farewell to his shaykhs in Maghrib. In Chapter II, we saw that one of the first shaykhs to be credited for the education and upbringing of Ibn al-Arabi was Shaykh Abu Yaqoub Yusuf Ibn Yakhluf al-Kumi, who was at this time in the city of Salé, as he mentioned in the Holy Spirit, and maybe that was the sole reason why he chose to come to this remote city in the south.

Before leaving him to Marrakesh, Shaykh Muhyiddin composed a poem in praising his Shaykh, where he said:

If it is said who is in this existence most honorable (ashraf) ... (I would say) Our master Yusuf Ibn Yakhluf.

... until he says after many verses ...

The full moon in his heights my be eclipsed... but the moon of my lord is never outshined.

No wonder, therefore, for someone with description and high elevated statues in the heart of his faithful disciple, it is undoubtedly worth the trouble to travel all this way to cast a last farewell look, and this is no doubt part of the sincerity that characterized the Greatest Shaykh, may Allah be pleased with him.

In the city of Salé, Shaykh Muhyiddin met a pious man from the Muslim community who told him a vision that urges on adhering to tradition of the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him. As we saw in the Chapter III, Shaykh Muhyiddin cites some visions he saw enforcing the importance of collecting hadith, as he later mentioned in the treatise of al-Mubashshirât (RG 485), which contains some visions that he saw in this regard. He adds that he met this man in the city of Salé which is described as the “end of land” because it is on the shore of the surrounding sea (the ocean) and there is no more land beyond it [Futuhat: III.69].

Also in the city of Salé, Shaykh Muhyiddin met with Shaykh Abdul-Halim al-Ghamad, who was predominantly overwhelmed with enthrallment (al-walah). He says about him that if he saw some elite person riding a horse and people are glorifying him, then he says to them: “Some Dust riding on dust” [Futuhat: IV.506].