Names and honorific titles
The Greatest Master Muhyiddin’s personal name is Muhammad ibn Ali, but he is known as Ibn al-Arabi or Ibn Arabi, without the definite article. The first is the more correct form according to this article. His many titles include al-Hatimi, al-Ta’i, Imam of the Realisers, Imam of the God-fearing, Leader of those who experience unveiling, the Overflowing Sea, the Red Sulphur, the Sea of Realities, Sultan of the Gnostics, and teacher of masters and disciples, among other expressions of reverence.
The Arabic article associates the spread of the title al-Shaykh al-Akbar with the tenth Islamic century, after Sultan Selim I entered Damascus in 922 AH and ordered the construction of the mosque and shrine.
Two scholars who must be distinguished
Muhyiddin Ibn al-Arabi is not the distinguished judge Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abd Allah Ibn al-Arabi al-Ma’afiri al-Ishbili al-Maliki, born in Seville in 468 AH. The latter was known for jurisprudence, legal theory and hadith. His works include Qanun al-Ta’wil, Ahkam al-Qur’an, Anwar al-Fajr, al-Nasikh wa-l-Mansukh, al-Qabas fi Sharh Muwatta’ al-Imam Malik, and al-Awasim min al-Qawasim.
Some researchers confuse the two men, attributing the sayings or works of one to the other. To distinguish them, eastern writers began calling the Greatest Master Ibn Arabi without the article and the judge Abu Bakr Ibn al-Arabi with it. This convention was never universal: the Greatest Master, like some of his uncles and ancestors, was called Ibn al-Arabi, as he states in many works and as his early disciples also record.
Both forms therefore occur in the references. The article prefers the form with the article because that is how he identified himself and signed his works. The two can be distinguished as the judge Abu Bakr Ibn al-Arabi and Muhyiddin Ibn al-Arabi. Where these qualifications are absent, the context and the subject matter usually help identify the jurist or the Sufi.
The family name and the written form
The article suggests that Ahmad ibn Abd Allah al-Hatimi, the father of Muhyiddin’s grandfather, bore the name al-Arabi. His son Muhammad was accordingly called Ibn al-Arabi. As evidence, it notes that the Futuhat names Muhyiddin’s paternal uncle, his father Ali’s brother, as Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn al-Arabi (volume 1, page 185). In the Arabic spelling cited there, “ibn” is written without the initial alif because it links Muhammad directly to the ancestor Ahmad.
When Muhyiddin signs his own name as “Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Muhammad Ibn al-Arabi al-Ta’i al-Hatimi”, he retains the alif in “Ibn al-Arabi”: the expression functions as a recognised family designation, as it did for his grandfather Muhammad, rather than identifying him as the immediate son of Ahmad.
The source concludes by recommending the spelling محي الدين ابن العربي. It rejects the abbreviated Arabic forms ابن عربي، بن عربي، بن العربي as the preferred way of writing his name. The accompanying signature image illustrates the site’s argument.