Lurianic Kabbalah, named after the Jewish kabbalist Isaac Luria (the ARI'zal) who developed it, gave a seminal new account of Kabbalistic thought that its followers synthesised with, and read into, the earlier Kabbalah of the Zohar that had disseminated in Medieval circles. Lurianic Kabbalah describes new supra-rational doctrines of the origins of Creation, and its cosmic rectification, incorporating a recasting and fuller systemisation of preceding Kabbalistic teaching. The main popularizer of Luria's ideas was Rabbi Hayyim ben Joseph Vital of Calabria, who claimed to be the official interpreter of the Lurianic system, though this was disputed by some. Together, the compiled teachings written by Luria's school after his passing are metaphorically called "Kitvei HaARI" (Writings of the ARI), though they differed on some core interpretations in the early generations.
Previous interpretations of the Zohar had culminated in the rationally influenced scheme of Moshe Cordovero in Safed, immediately before Luria's arrival. Both Cordovero's and Luria's systems gave Kabbalah a theological systemisation to rival the earlier eminence of Medieval Jewish philosophy. Under the influence of the mystical renaissance in 16th-century Safed, Lurianism became the near-universal mainstream Jewish theology in the early-modern era, both in scholarly circles, and in the popular imagination. The Lurianic scheme, read by its followers as harmonious with, and successively more advanced than the Cordoverian, mostly displaced it, becoming the foundation of subsequent developments in Jewish mysticism. After the Ari, the Zohar was interpreted in Lurianic terms, and later esoteric Kabbalists expanded mystical theory within the Lurianic system. The later Hasidic and Mitnagdic movements diverged over implications of Lurianic Kabbalah, and its social role in popular mysticism. The Sabbatean mystical heresy would also derive its source from Lurianic messianism, but distort the Kabbalistic interdependence of mysticism with Halakha Jewish observance.