The story of Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar and the Ibn Arabi fanboy

 Ibn Arabi was one of the most deviant, evil, misguided, blasphemous “scholars” of the thirteenth century. His most infamous book is the Fusus al-Hikam, which is a book about the art of mysticism and includes some of his Jahmi tafsir on the verses of the Holy Qur'an. In the book, he claims that “Allah worships him, and he worships Allah”. There is a lot more blasphemy in the book mixed with sayings of wisdom. Yet, some people even call him Shaykh al-Akbar! There are people, who still defend him, and claim that “a person cannot understand what he is writing, duh.” 

This was the case of Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani's encounter with a fanatic obsessed with the works of Ibn Arabi. Ibn Hajar had many debates with the followers of Ibn Arabi. Even though he was an Ash'ari, he had common sense that Ibn Arabi was in fact a disbeliever. One day, Ibn Hajar had a debate with some fanatic man. The man was angry that Ibn Hajar insulted his so-called Shaykh al-Akbar. So, the man threatened to report him to the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt (Sayf ad-Din Jaqmaq) for a different matter that was entirely unrelated to their debate. So, Ibn Hajar said, “The Sultan of Egypt has nothing to do with this matter!” Then he offered to do Mubahalah instead.

It is very rare, when people make Mubahalah and the lying one goes unpunished. The man agreed to Ibn Hajar's request. So the man said on request of Ibn Hajar, “O Allah, if Ibn Arabi is misguided, then curse me with Your curses!” Both men parted, and walked in their different ways. They would not see each other, until one fateful night later.

A day later, they encountered each other at a park in Cairo, on a moonlit night. The fanatic man then exclaimed, “Something soft touched my leg, look!” Ibn Hajar looked, but he did not see or observe anything of particular interest. The man did the same thing, but again, he did not see anything. Then the fanatic man checked his eyes, and realized that he had gone blind! Allah had afflicted this man with blindness, and it was indeed true that Ibn Arabi was a misguided one.

Source:

Aqeedah Ibn 'Arabi wa Hayathu by Qadi (Taqi al-Deen) Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Fasi al-Maliki, page 75-76