Sufism

Ibn Arabi met the unseen teacher Khidr on the road and was instructed by him directly

Ibn Arabi claimed direct instruction from Khidr, the mysterious Quranic figure associated with hidden knowledge given outside the ordinary chain of prophetic transmission.

In autobiographical passages of al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya, his vast encyclopedic work, Ibn Arabi describes an encounter on the road with Khidr, the enigmatic figure from the Quran traditionally associated with knowledge granted directly by God rather than learned through normal instruction. Khidr occupies a special place in Sufi tradition as a teacher who can appear to initiates outside the ordinary chain of human transmission, and Ibn Arabi's claim to have been personally instructed by him functions as a claim to authority not dependent on any living master. This kind of direct, unmediated instruction supports Ibn Arabi's broader self-presentation throughout the Futuhat as someone whose vast doctrinal system rests on visionary and unveiled knowledge as much as on scholarly study. Such encounters with Khidr appear elsewhere in Sufi literature as a recognized, if extraordinary, category of spiritual experience.

al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya