id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentence	flesch	summary	cache	txt
ajiss-1079	Lipton, G. A.	Ibn ‘Arabi and the Contemporary West: Beshara and the Ibn ‘Arabi Society By Isobel Jeffery-Street (Sheffield, UK and Oakville, CT: Equinox, 2012. 298 pages.)	2014.0	5	.pdf	application/pdf	1908	60	43	Chapter 4 offers “summaries of the principal texts and teachings of the works of Ibn ‘Arabi used for study by the Beshara School” (p. 89). While such an association has been normalized within Western treatments of Ibn ‘Arabi and is, as Taji-Farouki notes, “consolidated through an emphasis of the Oneness of Being as a unifying theme” (Taji-Farouki, p. 189), it does not reflect the Andalusian Sufi’s repeated metaphysical assertion of the Prophet Muhammad’s cosmic supremacy and an attendant acceptance of Islamic su- persessionism.2 Indeed, Jeffery-Street’s uncritical appropriation of universalist interpretive frameworks leads to oversimplifications of Ibn ‘Arabi’s complex ideas regarding “religion” and thus blatant contradictions, such as her assertion that Ibn ‘Arabi “does not reject outward polytheism, provided that the wor- shippers of images and idols realize that there is one Reality behind these forms,” while on the same page stating “[a]ccording to Ibn ‘Arabi, an aware- 142 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 31:4 ajiss31-4_ajiss 9/26/2014 2:45 PM Page 142 ness of immanence alone leads to polytheism, which he strongly denounces” (p. 108).	cache/ajiss-1079.pdf	txt/ajiss-1079.txt