His real name was Abu Bakkar Muhammad ibn al-Arabi al-Hatimi al-Ta'i, but he was known by the name of Mohyuddin Ibn Arabi (Mohyuddin means The Reviver of Religion).

In 1200 A.D, he left Spain for good, with the intention of making the Hajj (pilgrimage). The following year in Makka he began writing his monumental al-Fotuhat al-Makkiya; the title, "The Makkan Openings," alludes to the inspired nature of the book. In that book he wrote his story about his meeting with the Khidr:

"A group of wandering pilgrims who seclude themselves arrived at the mosque, intending to perform the prayer. Among them was the one who had talked to me on the sea (in Tunis), who I had been told was Khidr. Among them also was a man of great worth, who was greater than him in rank. I had met him before and made friends with him. I rose and greeted him; he greeted me and was pleased to see me. Then he went forward to perform the prayer. At the end of the prayer I stood talking with him at the door to the mosque, when the man I said was Khidr took a prayer-rug from the mihrab of the mosque, stretched it out seven cubits [10 feet] above the ground, and got onto it to do his supererogatory prayers. I asked my friend: "Have you seen this man and what he is doing?" He told me to go and ask him about it. So I left my friend and went over to see him. When Khidr had finished his prayers, I greeted him. He told me: "I only did what you saw for the sake of that denier over there", pointing to my travelling-companion who had denied miracles and who was sitting, watching him, "so that he might know that God does whatsoever He wishes with whomsoever He wishes." I turned back to the denier and asked him what he had to say. He replied: "What is there to say after seeing that?"

After pilgrimage, Ibne Arabi moved about for several years in the central Islamic lands, never going as far as Persia, he settled in Damascus in 1223 A.D. There he taught and wrote until his death. He is reported to have written 289 works, of which some 150 still exist.

Although earlier Sufi writers discussed metaphysical questions or cosmological doctrines, this was never on the same scale. For the most part the earlier Sufi writings are either practical guides or ecstatic expressions of transcendent or mystical states of consciousness. It was upto Ibn Arabi then to explicitly formulate what was only implicitly contained in the teachings of earlier Sufi masters. Through him the esoteric dimension of Islam was for the first time expressed openly.

In his famous book "Fusus-ul-Hukm" Hazrat Ibn Arabi says: "Those who have come to know Allah, through His own self-disclosure to them, they did not come to know Him via their minds, have known him with the light which Allah imparted to their hearts and minds. This light then reflected itself upon all things. Then they saw that all things subsist in Allah, and they witnessed the Onenesse of Allah in all those created aspects despite their multiplicity. For these aspects have no autonomy of existence. Their subsistence is only through the divine Sustainment (qayyûmiyya) and their affirmation is through the Support (imdâd) of Allah." Hazrat Ibn Arabi's these words jolted the minds of many Muslim Scholars, and they turned against him. Hazrat Ibn Arabi's that theory became famous as "Wahdat-ul-Wajud