Ibn al-Faridh

Who was Ibn al-Faridh?

Ibn al-Farid or Ibn Farid; Arabic, عمر بن علي بن الفارض was an Arab poet. His name literally means "son of the legal advocate for women," and his father was well regarded for his work in the legal sphere. He was born in Cairo, lived for some time in Mecca and died in Cairo. His poetry is entirely Sufic, and he was esteemed the greatest mystic poet of the Arabs. Some of his poems are said to have been written in ecstasies.

The poetry of Shaykh Umar Ibn al-Farid is considered by many to be the pinnacle of Arabic mystical verse, though surprisingly he is not widely known in the West. Ibn al-Farid's two masterpieces are The Wine Ode, a beautiful meditation on the "wine" of divine bliss, and The Poem of the Sufi Way, a profound exploration of spiritual experience along the Sufi Path and perhaps the longest mystical poem composed in Arabic. Both poems have inspired in-depth spiritual commentaries throughout the centuries, and they are still reverently memorized by Sufis and other devout Muslims today.