Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi was born in Murcia, al-Andalus, in 1165 and died in Damascus on 16 November 1240. After travelling through al-Andalus, the Maghrib, Mecca and Anatolia, he wrote al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya, an encyclopaedia of Sufism begun in Mecca after 1202, and Fusus al-Hikam (1229), whose attribution some scholars dispute in part. His followers called him al-Shaykh al-Akbar, and his name is linked to the doctrine of wahdat al-wujud, although the term was formulated by later commentators. His metaphysics was a principal source for Hamzah Fansuri and Syamsuddin as-Sumatrani in Aceh, and a point of dispute with Nuruddin ar-Raniry in the 17th century.