Ibn 'Arabi was prolific teacher, leaving us a vast corpus of written works. Asín functioned as a western pioneer in Sufi studies, particularly with respect to the difficult and demanding Ibn 'Arabi, the "Shaykh al-Akbar". Not surprisingly Asín assumes the viewpoint of a spiritually involved Christian academic; he sees in the works of Ibn 'Arabi many similarities with his own religion's mystics and doctrines. Consequently, Asín brings his specific, spiritually-informed consciousness to his discussion of the principles and practices taught by Ibn 'Arabi. According to Prof. Alexander Knysh, Asín was one of the earlier western scholars of Ibn 'Arabi, a motivated European clergyman who was: