Review: [untitled]

Author(s): William Chittick

Reviewed work(s):
Ibn Arab, ou la qute du soufre rouge by Claude Addas
Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 111, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1991), pp. 161162
Published by: American Oriental Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/603781
Accessed: 29/11/2008 17:33
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Reviews of Books
of several, mainly Persian, texts, and ample indexes to all
sections. The introductory matter describes the problems connected with the study of Isfarayini's works and the manuscripts utilized in the study. It then devotes twenty pages to an
analysis of the scanty biographical references to the author,
discussing in some detail, for example, his affiliation with
various masters of the Kubrawi order (such as Ahmad-i
Gurpanl) and the forty years he spent in Baghdad as a Sufi
master. Details are provided about his relationships with some
of his disciples, including 'Ala' al-Dawla Simnanl, and evidence for links with various high officials, including the I1khanid sultans Takuidarand Ghazan Khan and viziers such as
Sa'd al-Din SawajL.
The second part of the introduction devotes forty-five pages
to "the mystical way" in the teachings of the shaykh. IsfarayinT
placed primary emphasis upon the training of disciples and is
less concerned with the theory which was discussed in detail
by earlier Kubrawi masters, such as Najm al-Din Razi or his
own disciple Simnani. Landolt analyzes Isfarayini's views on
the two basic pillars of Sufi practice, dhikr and the shaykh.
Like other Kubrawi authors dealt with in important studies
by Fritz Meier and Henry Corbin, IsfarayinTpays a great deal
of attention to the ability of the master to guide the psychological and spiritual development of disciples, in particular
as related to the disciple's experience of the subtle centers
(latd'if) of his own being. Landolt's study here is an important contribution to Sufi psychology. The introductory section is supplemented by copious footnotes, illustrating the
extreme care of the author to dot every i. With notes, the
translation of the first of the edited texts, Kashif al-asrar,
takes up the remaining eighty pages of the French section.
The Persian text includes, along with Kdshif al-asrar, six
short treatises (three in Arabic) written in answer to questions
and chosen "rather arbitrarily" (p. 14) from the available
material, and a forty-page treatise called Risala dar rawish-i
suluk wa khalwat-nishnL.
The editions and translation show the same careful scholarship found in the introduction, though the translation is not
quite as literal as one might have expected. The texts are
intrinsically of great interest, not only for the practical side of
Sufi teaching which Landolt emphasizes, but also for the
manner in which the author integrates all of his teachings into
the doctrine of the divine names and attributes. He is as
concerned to do this as was Ibn al-'Arabi, though his terminology and approach are more reminiscent of Najm al-Din
Razl, or, slightly further afield, Jalal al-Din Rfum. Especially
interesting are the several autobiographical sections. In one
the author tells us in surprising and entertaining detail about
his attempts to balance his own legitimate needs with those of
the ants who depended upon the same discarded grain which
he was gathering from the road.
The translation adds an important work to the increasing
library of Sufi texts available in European languages. Since

161

many people will buy the book not for the careful historical
and textual scholarship but for the door it opens into the
universe of the practical teachings of Islamic spirituality, one
is disappointed that Landolt left more than half of his texts
untranslated. In any case, he has rendered a service to all
those interested in Sufism and the development of Islamic
psychology.
WILLIAM
CHITTICK
STATEUNIVERSITY
OFNEWYORKATSTONYBROOK

Ibn ArabL, ou la quete du soufre rouge. By CLAUDEADDAS.

GALBibliotheque des sciences humaines. Paris: EDITIONS
1989. Pp. 407. FF 130.
LIMARD,
Anyone even slightly familiar with Sufism or Islamic intellectual history over the past 600 years has heard the name of
Ibn al-'Arabi (560-638/1165-1240). Despite his fame, few
orientalists have had the temerity to undertake studies of his
works, whether because of the sheer volume of the corpus, the
vast range of the subject matter, or the notorious difficulty of
the technical terminology. But it has been widely recognized
that, from the time they were put into writing, Ibn al-'Arabi's
works have been widely influential in the expression of Islamic
intellectual and spiritual teachings on every level, from the
most sophisticated to the most popular.
Up until now, there have been three basic sources for Ibn
al-'Arabi's life, the later two (Corbin's Creative Imagination
in the Sufism of Ibn 5ArabT
and Austin's Sufis of Andalusia)
greatly indebted to Asin Palacios' El Islam cristianizido. The
tendentiousness of this last work is announced in the title,
while Corbin's skill at reading his own ideas into Muslim
thought is well known (and in the case of Ibn al-'Arabi, this
comes out even in biographical details). Austin provides a
brief summary of what appeared to be the facts found in
the first two works. Claude Addas' book represents a major
departure from these earlier works. Not only has she gone
through practically the whole corpus of Ibn al-'Arabi's writings, whether printed or in manuscript, but she has also sifted
through a great volume of contemporary and later material.
She has added a wealth of carefully documented detail to what
was already known, while correcting many misconceptions
and common mistakes. She has discussed practically all the
persons and places which are known to have been connected
with Ibn al-'Arabi's life, offering factual information which
will be of interest to all scholars concerned with the personalities of the time, including several kings and princes from
Andalusia to Anatolia. The detailed discussions of contemporary Sufis, theologians, and fuqahd3 are especially valuable.

162

Journal of the American Oriental Society 111.1 (1991)

Addas' frequent references to and explanations of Ibn al'Arabi's doctrinal teachings are clear and accurate, with none
of the tortuous philosophizing that makes Corbin's work so
opaque and unrepresentative of the original.
The work is divided into an introduction, ten chapters, and
a conclusion, the chapters being arranged according to the
major outward and inward events of Ibn al-'Arabi's life. Five
appendices provide a sixteen-page chronology and various
charts and silsilsas showing the shaykh's relationships with
other Sufis. The book's structure helps illustrate the intimate
connection between Ibn al-'ArabT's doctrinal teachings and
the development of his own career. Not that his teachings
changed in any significant way from the time he put his first
treatise into writing at the age of thirty. But his outward
occupations were guided primarily by a series of visionary
experiences which Addas has mapped out clearly and convincingly. Many studies, such as Affifi's Mystical Philosophy of
Muhyid-din Ibnul-Arabf, Izutsu's Sufism and Taoism, and
much of the derivative literature, have tended to push into the
background the fact that Ibn al-'ArabTwas not a "philosopher" in any ordinary sense of the term. He did not think out
a "system," even though his works are internally coherent and
provide numerous germs for the later systematic discussions
which were to grow up among his followers. His works represent a torrent of visionary knowledge resulting from the
"opening" (futuh) of the door to the unseen world, whereby
he entered into the ranks of the men of the invisible hierarchy
(rijal al-ghayb). Why do his works present what are arguably
the most seminal and sophisticated meditations upon the
Islamic sciences, ranging from grammar and fiqh to cosmology and metaphysics, to be found in all of Islamic thought?
From the point of view of Ibn al-'ArabTand his followersand this has to be made explicit in a scholarly presentation of
his life-this is because his works were written under the
inspiration of the very sources of these sciences. The visionary
connection to the world of imagination, where one can encounter the loci of manifestation (mazahir) for the spiritual
realities of the prophets and the friends of God, is the root of
everything Ibn al-'Arabi wrote. Michel Chodkiewicz has reminded us in his outstanding study of Ibn al-'Arabi's concept
of walaya, Le Sceau des saints, that Ibn al-'Arabi's teachings
are all connected to his own personal experience of the role of
the wall in human history. It is one of the great merits of
Addas' work that she has conclusively demonstrated the
truth of this statement by relating it to the details of Ibn
al-'ArabT'scareer.
For Sufism in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, this
book will remain an important reference work, and for
studies of Ibn al-'ArabTand his school it is now an indispensable companion-and in many instances a corrective-to
Osman Yahia's Histoire et classification de l'oeuvre d'Ibn
'ArabL.The work is also a readable and exciting account of a

spiritual destiny which, in its details and coherence, is hardly

paralleled in the annals of the world's religions.
WILLIAM
CHITTICK
STATEUNIVERSITY
OFNEWYORKATSTONYBROOK

Prophecy Continuous: Aspects of AhmadTReligious Thought

and its Medieval Background. By YOHANNAN
FRIEDMANN.
Comparative Studies on Muslim Societies, 9. Berkeley and
Los Angeles: UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
PRESS,1989.
Pp. xvi + 218. $37.50.
Prophecy has always been a central part of the Islamic
tradition, but never does it seem more significant than when
its conventional interpretation is challenged. From its beginning just over a century ago, the Ahmadi movement has
posed such a challenge for Islam in the south Asian subcontinent, and the reverberations of the resulting controversies
continue to be felt in the political life of Pakistan. Yohannan
Friedmann, whose detailed studies of Islam in the subcontinent are well known for their accuracy and erudition, has
produced a scholarly monograph that explicates the Ahmadi
concept of prophecy in terms of the competing prophetologies
of medieval Islam. The result is an intellectual history that
succeeds admirably in clarifying the problems raised by the
Ahmadi movement.
The book is divided into four parts, beginning with a brief
history of the Ahmadi movement, followed by an analysis of
concepts of prophecy in medieval Islam, detailed consideration of the spiritual claims of Ghulam Ahmad, and a final section on the propagation of Islam in relation to the Ahmadis.
Friedmann makes clear that the colonial context was an
essential aspect of the Ahmadi movement. On the one hand,
the Ahmadis were trying to counter Christian missionary
activity, acting according to their understanding of truejihad.
Their doctrine that Jesus died in Kashmir is explainable as
part of a strategy to demonstrate the superiority of Islam to
Christianity, by showing that Jesus was not resurrected and
will not return as the Messiah (that role was reserved for
Ghulam Ahmad). On the other hand, because the British
permitted the Ahmadis to proselytize, the Ahmadis never
renounced their loyalty to British rule. In discussing the role
of the AhmadTsin Pakistan, Friedmann has shown how they
unexpectedly provoked major constitutional crises concerning the Islamic identity of Pakistan. In a fine piece of analysis
(pp. 42-43), he comments on the ironic situation in which the
National Assembly of Pakistan in 1973 assumed the position
of theologians in defining who was and was not a Muslim.
The subsequent anti-Ahmadi ordinance promulgated by Presi-