Recent scholarship has highlighted the profound influence of Arabic Neoplatonism—particularly its Shīʿi-Ismaili forms—on the intellectual traditions of Islamic and Jewish thought in medieval Spain (Al-Andalus). Works associated with Ismaili Islam, such as The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity (Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā') and texts on occult sciences traditionally attributed to Jabir ibn Hayyan, were highly popular among Iberian thinkers between the 10th and 12th centuries. These works influenced Sunni Muslim philosophers and mystics like Ibn Masarra and Ibn al-Arabi, as well as Jewish thinkers such as Ibn Gabirol and Judah ha-Levi. The latter wrote their most significant works in Judeo-Arabic, deeply drawing from Islamic sources. Through Jewish Neoplatonists, the Ismaili tradition also provided an intellectual foundation for Kabbalists in 13th-century Christian Spain.
Continuing this trajectory, I propose to reexamine the history of theurgy in Spanish Kabbalah. Rather than relying solely on earlier Jewish sources to explain the origins of theurgical ideas in Kabbalah, I suggest exploring them through the lens of Arabic Neoplatonism. I will examine the works of various Iberian thinkers - the writings of Muslim thinkers like Ibn Arabi and Jewish Kabbalistic texts, such as the Book of Zohar - identifying potential sources of their theurgical thought in Arabic occult and Neoplatonic literature. By shedding light on the Arabic and Islamic contexts of Jewish conceptions of theurgy in medieval Iberia, this paper contributes to the ongoing effort to map the intellectual currents that shaped Kabbalah.