بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
شرح خلع النعلين

Commentary on the Removal of the Two Sandals

Muḥyiddīn Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638 AH / 1240 CE)

When God called to Moses from the burning bush, He commanded him: «Remove your two sandals» [20:12]. The twelfth-century Sufi scholar Ibn Qasī (d. 546 AH / 1151 CE) read this Quranic episode as an allegory of spiritual realization and composed Khalʿ al-Naʿlayn ("The Removal of the Two Sandals") — a treatise on the soul's preparation for divine encounter. A century later, Muḥyiddīn Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638 AH / 1240 CE), the greatest metaphysician of the Islamic tradition, wrote this commentary (sharḥ) on Ibn Qasī's text, unfolding its implications through his own doctrine of the oneness of being, theophanic self-disclosure, and the immutable entities. The work alternates between Ibn Qasī's original passages [Text] and Ibn al-ʿArabī's commentary [Commentary].

7 Juzʾ 242 Pages Draft
Draft — not human-reviewed

This translation was produced by an AI model and has not been verified or corrected by a human editor. It may contain errors in reading, terminology, and argument structure. It is intended solely as a study aid to be used alongside the original Arabic text, not as a standalone translation.

About this translation

An English rendering of Ibn al-ʿArabī's Sharḥ Khalʿ al-Naʿlayn, translated directly from the Arabic critical text in the edition by Ercan Alkan (Türkiye Yazma Eserler Kurumu Başkanlığı, 2021). Produced with Claude Opus 4.6 via vision-based translation from page images of the Arabic odd pages (225–709). The Turkish scholarly translation on the facing even pages served as a review reference for verifying section structure, technical terminology, and Quranic citation accuracy. A cross-chapter consistency review was also performed with Gemini 3.1.

Technical Akbarian vocabulary follows Chittick's conventions (The Sufi Path of Knowledge). Quranic quotations marked «thus» with [surah:ayat] references.

The Seven Juzʾ

1

The First Juzʾ of the Commentary on Khalʿ al-Naʿlayn

الجزء الأول من شرح خلع النعلين
40 pages pp. 1–40
2

The Second Juzʾ of the Commentary on Khalʿ al-Naʿlayn

الجزء الثاني من شرح خلع النعلين
35 pages pp. 41–75
3

The Third Juzʾ of the Commentary on Khalʿ al-Naʿlayn

الجزء الثالث من شرح خلع النعلين
30 pages pp. 76–105
4

The Fourth Juzʾ of the Commentary on Khalʿ al-Naʿlayn

الجزء الرابع من شرح خلع النعلين
42 pages pp. 106–147
5

The Fifth Juzʾ of the Commentary on Khalʿ al-Naʿlayn

الجزء الخامس من شرح خلع النعلين
35 pages pp. 148–182
6

The Sixth Juzʾ of the Commentary on Khalʿ al-Naʿlayn

الجزء السادس من شرح خلع النعلين
29 pages pp. 183–211
7

The Seventh Juzʾ of the Commentary on Khalʿ al-Naʿlayn

الجزء السابع من شرح خلع النعلين
31 pages pp. 212–242