Sh. Muhyiddin Ibn al-ʿArabī

29a On Recognizing the Alchemy of Felicity

In Chapter 167 of the Meccan Openings, Ibn al-ʿArabī provides an extensive description of the contrast between those who see with the eye of intellectual discrimination and those who see with both eyes.

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He calls this chapter ‘On Recognizing the Alchemy of Felicity.’ ‘Felicity’ is the term used by philosophers to translate the Greek work eudaimonia – the happiness that is to be attained by the seeker of wisdom.

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It is also a standard term for salvation in Islamic theology, because of a Qurʾanic verse saying that at the resurrection, people will be divided into two groups, the felicitous and the wretched (11:105).^[25] And of course, Alchemy of Felicity is also the name of al-Ghazālī’s Persian summary of his Ihyāʾ, whether or not Ibn al-ʿArabī was aware of the book’s existence.