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A (new) Brill Series including short histories and concise surveys of appealing
themes in the field of Islamic and Arabic Studies. The various titles give an
accessible overview of a specific aspect or topic. Scholars and graduate students
find in this series easy reference tools to current subjects in Islamic history and
culture. Several titles are edited compilations of articles from the Encyclopaedia
of Islam (second edition).
VOLUME 1
Islamic Mysticism
A Short History
By
Alexander Knysh
LEIDEN BOSTON
2000
Cover illustration: Bibliothque nationale de France, Paris, RESERVE OD-43-PET,
FOL 24 (NQ-C-024203), Visite du chanteur soufi Shir Muhammed auprs dAbul
Hasan Qutb Shah, XVIIIme sicle.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this title as follows:
Knysh, Alexander D.
Islamic mysticism : a short history / by Alexander Knysh,
p. cm. (Themes in Islamic studies, ISSN 1389-823X ; v. 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 9004107177 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. SufismHistory. 2. MysticismIslamHistory. I. Title. II. Series.
BP189.K69 1999
297.409dc21
99-41321
CIP
ISSN 1389-823S
ISBN 978 90 04 10717 5 (Hardback)
ISBN 978 90 04 19462 5 (Paperback)
Acknowledgements ...................................................................... ix
A Note on Transliteration .......................................................... xi
List of Abbreviations .................................................................. xiii
Introduction .................................................................................. 1
I bear full responsibility for any mistakes that may have crept into
this volume. I owe a special debt to my wife Anya, who spared nei-
ther time nor eort seeing this book through. Finally, I dedicate this
book to my parents, Dmitri Knysh and Alexandra Knysh, in grati-
tude for their love and kindness.
A NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION
5
Mystique musulmane: Aspects et tendences, expriences et techniques, 3rd edition, Paris,
1976.
6
Susm: An account of the mystics of Islam, 5th ed., London, 1969.
7
Les mystiques musulmans, Paris, 1965.
8
Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill, NC, 1975.
9
Mystical Islam: An introduction to Susm, London, 1989.
CHAPTER ONE
THE BEGINNINGS
The Name
1
See, e.g., A. J. Arberry, The Doctrine of the Sus, Cambridge, reprint, 1991, pp.
511.
6 chapter one
2
See, e.g., Ibrhm Basyn, Nash"at al-taawwuf al-islm, Cairo, 1969, pp. 1112.
3
Ibn al-Jawz, Talbs Ibls, Cairo, n.d., pp. 161165.
4
For a ne selection of such verses and prophetic logia see, e.g., Smith, Early
Mysticism, pp. 125152; cf. Arberry, Susm, pp. 1530.
5
E.g., 'mir b. 'Abd Qays al-'Anbar, whose deant uprightness, frugality and
unconventional vegetarian diet aroused the suspicions of his superiors, who reported
the beginnings 7
as they did not agitate against the state. They argued that the truly
God-fearing person should try to save himself by withdrawing from
the overbearing world and its sinful and unjust ways. As an outward
sign of this pietistic withdrawal, some of them adopted a distinct
dress code, which often featured a rough woolen robe. This robe
set them apart from people wearing more expensive silk or cotton.
Wittingly or not, the early Muslim religiosi thereby came to resemble
Christian monks and ascetics, who also donned coarse woolen clothes
as a symbol of penitence and contempt for worldly luxuries.6 In view
of its strong Christian connotations, some early Muslim authorities
sometimes frowned upon the wearing of wool. Others condemned
it as an ostentatious display of poverty, which, they argued, implied
that God was not adequately providing for the needs of his servants.
In spite of their protests, the custom of wearing a woolen robe caught
on with many piety-minded Muslims in Syria and Iraq. By metonymy,
the name of the material was transferred onto those who made the
habit of wearing it. Originally applied to itinerant outsiders (possi-
bly in a derogatory sense), by the end of the eighth century C.E.,
in the central lands of Islam the nick-name yya (wool-people or
wool-wearers) became a self-designation of those given to ascetic
life and mystical contemplation. This term did not, however, meet
with a quick and universal acceptance. Thus, in Khursn and
Transoxania, mystics of speculative slant were for a long time known
as the wise men (ukam"; sing. akm), those who know [God],
or gnostics ('rifn; sing. 'rif ). As for the more practice-oriented
individuals, in the eastern lands of Islam, as in Iraq and Syria, they
were called the poor (Arab. faqr; Pers. darwsh) or the devotees
(zuhhd ). In the East, ascetic discipline and world-renouncing piety
were cultivated by some local sects, most notably, the Karrmiyya
of Khursn and Transoxania and the Malmatiyya of Nshpr,
which were suppressed by, or incorporated into, the Iraqi-based Su
movement under the Saljuqs.7
him to the caliph Mu'wiya, Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. Und 3.
Jahrhundert Hidschra, Berlin and New York, vol. 2, 1992, pp. 8788.
6
See Arthur Vbus, Syriac and Arabic Documents Regarding Legislation Relevant to
Syrian Asceticism, Stockholm, 1960, pp. 20, 58, 59, 101, etc. cf. van Ess, Theologie,
vol. 2, pp. 88, 94, 610, etc.
7
J. Chabbi, Rexions sur le sousme iranien primitif, in: Journal Asiatique, vol.
266/12 (1978), pp. 3755; B. Radtke, Theologen und Mystiker in ursn und
Transoxanien, in: ZDMG, vol. 136/1 (1986), pp. 536569.
8 chapter one
8
Smith, Studies, p. 145.
9
Wak ' b. al-Jarr, Kitb al-zuhd. Ed. by 'Abd al-Ramn al-Faryawn, 2d edi-
tion, Riyadh, 1994, vol. 1, p. 234.
the beginnings 9
10
B. Reinert, Die Lehre vom tawakkul in der klassischen Suk, Berlin, 1968, p. 188;
van Ess, Theologie, vol. 1, pp. 228229.
10 chapter one
11
G. Bwering, The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam, Berlin, 1980, pp.
145165.
the beginnings 11
I could have everything that lies between the two bridges for a bas-
ketful of earth, that would not please me. Al-asan referred to the
worldling, whose faith sat lightly on him and who sinned without
concern, as hypocrite (munq)one who hovers midway between
faith and unbelief. He judged sins strictly (tashdd al-ma' ) and con-
sidered the sinner to be fully responsible for his actions. Hence he
denied that one can exculpate himself by saying that God created
all actionsa position that was interpreted by some as his support
of the doctrine which emphasized human free will over against divine
determination of events (qadariyya). However, his exact stance on this
hotly debated issue remained elusive. In his famous letter to the
caliph 'Abd al-Malik, who supported the predestinarian view which
implicitly justied the rule of his dynasty, al-asan shows a remark-
able ability to skirt potentially divisive problems, without, however,
overtly sacricing his basic principles. Duly respectful of the caliphal
authority, he reserved the right to criticize it for what he saw as vio-
lations of the divinely ordained order of things. He exhorted his lis-
teners to practice humility and self-scrutiny. The latter was necessary
in order to bring out the real motives of ones words or actions and
thus to make them more sincere. This psychological analysis was to
become the cornerstone of Su self-discipline and introspection which
were brought to fruition in the work of al-Musib (d. 243/857).12
Al-asans brotherly feeling towards his contemporaries (ukhuwwa)
and his altruism (thr) were also appropriated by later Sus as an
attitude conducive to the mystical goal. They became the founda-
tion of the doctrine of chivalry ( futuwwa)a hallmark of many Su
associations in the subsequent epochs. Another feature that made al-
asan so attractive to later Sus was his relative disregard for the
exacting standards of adth transmission, which, in the eyes of pedan-
tic adth experts, determined the overall worth of a Muslim scholar.
His own sayings were sometimes circulated as adths, and he did
not protest. Nor was he interested in reconstructing and document-
ing the chain of transmitters of any given statement attributed to
the Prophet or his Companionsan attitude that caused some later
adth scholars to treat him as a weak authority prone to bbing
(tadls). Since many later Sus were themselves accused of careless-
ness in this matter, they argued that al-asan was, like themselves,
interested in the kernel rather than the husks of religion. No
12
On him see below.
the beginnings 13
13
Ab lib al-Makk, Qt al-qulb, Cairo, 1310 A.H., vol. 1, p. 149.
14
Ibrhm Basyn, Nash"at al-taawwuf, pp. 1213.
15
For the authoritative statements that encourage the practice of weeping and
self-recrimination see Wak ' b. al-Jarr, Kitb al-zuhd, vol. 1, pp. 248263.
14 chapter one
16
See F. Meier, Bakk", EI, vol. 1, 95961.
17
See, e.g., van Ess, Theologie, vol. 2, p. 90.
18
R. Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder des Sutums, Wiesbaden, 1995, vol. 1, p. 60.
19
Ibid., pp. 5153.
the beginnings 15
20
Ab Nu'aym al-Ifahn, ilyat al-awliy" wa-abaqt al-ay", Cairo, 19321938,
vol. 4, 221222; cf. Ch. Pellat, Le milieu basrien et la formation de ]i, Paris, 1953,
p. 101.
21
Arberry, Susm, p. 35.
22
Ab Nu'aym, ilya, vol. 7, p. 33 and van Ess, Theologie, vol. 1, p. 224.
23
Margaret Smith, An Early Mystic of Baghdad, London, 1935, p. 69.
24
Vbus, Syrian and Arabic Documents, pp. 20, 58, 101, etc.; Ogn, Did the Term
f . . ., pp. 4045.
16 chapter one
25
Ab Nu'aym, ilya, vol. 6, pp. 157158.
26
B. Radtke (ed.), Adab al-mulk: Ein Handbuch zur islamischen Mystik aus dem 4./10.
Jahrhundert, Beirut, 1991, pp. 3435 (Arabic text).
the beginnings 17
27
L. Massignon, Recueil de textes indits concernant lhistoire de la mystique en pays dIslam,
Paris, 1929, p. 5.
28
F. Meier, Bakk" , EI, vol. 1, p. 960; Margaret Smith, Studies, p. 25, and
126127.
29
ilya, vol. 6, p. 155.
30
Smith, Studies, p. 185.
31
The existence of the rst Su monastery (khnaq) at Ramla (Palestine), which
was allegedly constructed by Ab Hshim al-f in the rst decades of the sec-
ond/eighth century, is impossible to ascertain, see F. Meier, Ab Sa 'd-i Ab l-ayr
(357440/9671049): Wirklichkeit und Legende, Leiden and Tehran, 1976, pp. 302304.
18 chapter one
About the same time, we witness the emergence and spread of ascetic
groups in the garrison towns and fortresses along the Byzantine-
Muslim frontier in Syria and upper Mesopotamia. This area, known
as al-Thughr (Marches), was home to two great representatives
of the next generation of Muslim ascetics: Ibrhm b. Adham (d.
161/778) and Ibn al-Mubrak (d. 181/797). Coming from the east-
ern lands of the Caliphate, they settled in the Marches in search of
a pure and licit livelihood (all ma ). Their presence in the area,
which was a scene of erce struggle between the Muslims and the
Christians, further illustrates an intimate link between the nascent
32
Van Ess, Theologie, vol. 2, pp. 102106.
33
Meier, Ab Sa'd, pp. 304305.
the beginnings 19
ascetic movement and what the sources describe as the rib and jihd,
that is, residence and voluntary military service on the borders of
Islam. In addition to martyrdom, life in the Thughr oered a wel-
come escape from the increasingly overbearing caliphal state for the
knights of the prayer niche ( fursn al-mirb) who were anxious
to dissociate themselves completely from the tyranny of its impi-
ous rulers. The fervid atmosphere of self-denial and martyrdom that
characterized life in the frontier territory produced a class of war-
rior-monks who combined warfare against the Byzantine enemy with
spectacular acts of harsh worship, charity and self-imposed poverty.34
It was there that the piety of the ghters for faith reached its peak:
their incessant search for purity, especially in dietary matters, caused
them to reject even those things which are usually permitted under
the Divine Law.
34
M. Bonner, Aristocratic Violence and Holy War, New Haven, CT, 1996, pp.
107134.
35
For his biography and teaching see Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder, vol. 1, pp. 135282.
36
According to his earliest biographers he came from a pure Arab stock, Radtke,
Theologen, p. 539.
37
Bonner, Aristocratic Violence, p. 126, cf. al-Sulam, abaqt, p. 13.
38
Smith, An Early Mystic, p. 73.
20 chapter one
39
Arberry, Susm, pp. 3637 and Bonner, op. cit., pp. 128129.
40
Ibid., p. 130 and pp. 159184.
41
For, in my view, an unsuccessful attempt to establish a crisp chronological and
conceptual borderline between the two see C. Melchert, The Transition from
Asceticism to Mysticism at the Middle of the Ninth Century C.E., StI, vol. 83/1
(1996), pp. 5170.
the beginnings 21
Ibn al-Mubrak
A more accommodating, inner-worldly oriented type of piety is
exemplied by the Khursn devotee 'Abd Allh b. al-Mubrak,42
who is credited with great feats of arms in the holy war against the
Byzantine Christians. Although his later biographers invariably stressed
his exemplary piety and abstinence from worldly delights, he was
primarily famous for his active striving on the path of God ( jihd )
and superior physical strength. These qualities made him a formi-
dable warrior and a popular military leader. A role model and a
source of inspiration for his numerous friends and comrades-in-arms,
who insisted that his virtues were never united in any man of learn-
ing of the epoch,44 Ibn al-Mubrak represents an activist, inner-
worldly oriented asceticism that was quite distinct from that pursued
by Ibn Adham and his followers. Not only did he disapprove the idle
and slothful ascetics he encountered in Baghdad, he also actively
encouraged his followers to engage in a gainful employment, espe-
cially in trade and the crafts. He himself was a successful merchant,
who generously lavished his wealth on the Muslim volunteer ghters
of the frontier and provided for indigent Muslim pilgrims to Mecca.44
A prolic writer and adth collector (muaddith), Ibn al-Mubrak is
famous for his Book of Renunciation [Asceticism] (Kitb al-zuhd ),
one of the earliest, and probably the most comprehensive, works of
this genre. Kitb al-zuhd is a collection of the adth and pious dicta,
which are carefully selected to emphasize the world-renouncing atti-
tude of the Prophet, of his family, of the Companions and the
Successors as well as of those Muslim devotees who came in their
wake. Similar to the zuhd collections by Z"ida b. Qudma, Wak '
b. al-Jarr (d. 197/812) and Asad b. Ms (d. 212/827), this work
contains hundreds of pious aphorisms, moral and ethical precepts
which became the building blocks of the later Su tradition. As the
other works of this genre, Ibn al-Mubraks Kitb al-zuhd praises
humility, patience, penitence, trust in God, hospitality, vigils, silence,
poverty and weeping, while strongly condemning avarice, envy, anger,
selshness, and other vices. Yet Ibn al-Mubrak was careful to steer
42
Some sources described him as a native of Marv (Central Asia), see Reinert,
Die Lehre, p. 309; Arberry, Susm, p. 40.
43
Bonner, Aristocratic Violence, p. 120.
44
Van Ess, Theologie, vol. 2, p. 552.
22 chapter one
45
Reinert, Die Lehre, p. 220.
46
See, e.g., Raif G. Khoury (ed.), Asad b. Ms, Kitb al-zuhd, Wiesbaden, 1976.
47
Ab Nu'aym, ilya, vol. 10, p. 117.
the beginnings 23
48
This legend was apparently unknown to Fuayls earliest biographers, see
J. Chabbi, Fuayl b. 'Iy, un prcurseur du anbalisme (187/803), in: BEO, vol.
30 (1978), pp. 331345.
49
Ab Nu'aym, ilya, vol. 8, p. 84.
50
Ibid., pp. 105107.
51
J. Chabbi (see note 48 above) views him as a typical representative of the Sunni
revival that culminated in Amad b. anbal (d. 241/855).
24 chapter one
Conclusions
While later Su literature tends to represent all three devotees we
have just discussed as the soul-mates and the founding fathers of the
Su movement, one cannot but notice substantial dierences in their
religious attitudes and devotional styles. Ibrhm b. Adham and his
followers adhered to an extreme, exclusivist type of piety. Its strin-
gent requirements inevitably set them apart from the Islamic com-
munity as a whole. Ibn al-Mubrak, on the other hand, demonstrates
a much more inner-worldly, community-centered religious attitude.
Not only did he recognize the ascetics obligations towards his
family and the society around him, but he also encouraged his adher-
ents to be actively involved in the aairs of this world. This posi-
tion found its expression in two distinct domains: his mercantile
52
Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder, vol. 1, pp. 283288.
53
While Fuayl was married (perhaps to several women), Dwd at-" remained
celibate throughout his life, see Gramlich, Alter Vorbilder, p. 285.
54
Fuayl may have inherited this notion from his teacher Sufyn al-Thawr, see
Wak ' b. al-Jarr, Kitb al-zuhd, vol. 1, p. 220; cf. ibid., pp. 372373 and Chabbi,
Fuayl, pp. 338339.
55
Ibid., pp. 342343.
the beginnings 25
56
Bonner, Aristocratic Violence, p. 120.
57
Ibid., p. 131.
58
E.g., the wearing of wool, see Ab Nu'aym, ilya, vol. 8, p. 98.
59
Chabbi, Fuayl, passim.
60
See, e.g., Smith, An Early Mystic, p. 74.
26 chapter one
61
Pellat, Le milieu basrien, p. 104; cf. van Ess, Theologie, vol. 3, p. 101.
62
J. Baldick interprets this legend as a reminiscence of the celebrated converted
prostitutes of early eastern Christianity, see Mystical Islam, p. 29.
the beginnings 27
male visitors were still held down by aectation and egoism.63 When
'Abd al-Wid had proposed to her, he was greeted by a scornful
rebu, O the sensual one, seek another sensual like thyself. Hast
thou seen any sign of desire in me? Another suitor, the governor
of Bara, who tried to entice her into marriage by a dowry of a
hundred thousand golden dnrs, also got the brush-o. Other oers
of marriage, including the improbable one from al-asan al-Bar
who had died more than seventy years before her death, were also
rejected. In Rbi'as words, she was completely unable to tolerate
any suitor who would distract her from God for a single moment,
not to mention commit herself to him for life. For it was God whom
she considered to be her only genuine Bridegroom.64
In another episode she shows her disregard for the professional
adth collectors. For her, their profession was but a sign of vain-
glory and a distraction from contemplating God, which, in her mind,
was even worse than the accumulation of capital and the bringing
up of children.65 This attitude was shared by many of her ascetic
contemporaries.
Rbi'as whole life was marked by extreme asceticism and self-
denial. Many of the statements attributed to her by later Su authors
emphasize her self-suciency and unwillingness to depend on any-
one save God. When her friends suggested that her kinsfolk purchase
her a servant to look after her needs, she said, Verily, I should
be ashamed to ask for this worlds goods from Him to Whom they
belong! How should I seek them from those to whom they do not
belong?66 Interestingly, the great Arab writer al-Ji (d. 256/869),
a native of Bara, who was possibly the rst to record this anec-
dote,67 makes no mention of the numerous miraculous deeds ascribed
to Rbi'a by later authors. His silence indicates that, in the third/
ninth century, her legendary image was still in the making. On the
other hand, al-Jis story is at odds with the evidence that she did
have a servant, Maryam al-Bariyya, to whom she communicated
her doctrine of pure love ('ilm al-maabba). That Rbi'as legend
took at least two centuries to crystallize is evident from the fact that
it was not known to the tenth-century Su biographers al-Sarrj
63
M. Sells, Early Islamic Mysticism, New York and Mahwah, 1996, p. 153.
64
Ibid., pp. 1013.
65
Ab lib al-Makk, Qt vol. 1, pp. 156157.
66
Smith, Rabi'a, pp. 2021.
67
Al-Ji, Al-Bayn wa l-tabyn, 3d edition, Cairo, 1960, vol. 3, p. 127.
28 chapter one
(d. 378/988), al-Kalbdh (d. ca. 384/994), and al-Makk (d. 386/996),
who, however, were aware of her existence.68
Rbi'as unshakable trust in Gods generosity and solicitude for
his servants is attested by her following statement: Will God forget
the poor because of their poverty or remember the rich because of
their riches? Since He knows my state, what have I to remind Him
of ? Oblivious of mundane comforts she was often seen sleeping on
an old rush mat with a brick under her head to serve as a pillow.
She drank and made her ablutions from a cracked jar.69 Placing her
trust in Gods providence, Rbi'a gratefully accepted illness and
suering as signs of Gods attention to her persona. In line with this
belief she endured her aictions and pain with fortitude, refusing
treatment and medicine oered to her by her fellow ascetics.
Later Su writers, such as Far al-Dn 'Ar (d. ca. 627/1230),70
credited her with numerous miracles. Food was miraculously served
to her guests and she herself was provided for by mysterious visitors
and donors: a camel (or a donkey), which died when she was on
pilgrimage, was restored to life for her use; the lack of a lamp in
her house was compensated by the light which emanated from her
body during the night; God himself protected her house and elds
from looting; she could y in the air on her prayer-mat.71
However, by far the most striking feature of Rbi'as piety is her
single-minded focus on God whom she viewed as the only worthy
object of desire, love and worship. Before God all other concerns
and commitments were allowed to fade into insignicance. For Rbi'a,
even love for ones children and the Prophet as well as fear of hell
and Satan were but distractions that should not interfere with ones
worship of God. This attitude is brought into a sharp focus in the
famous story in which Rbi'a publicly announces her intent to put
to the torch the gardens of paradise and douse the ames of hell-
re, so that no one would serve God out of desire for his reward
and fear of his punishment.72 Questioned about her love for the
68
The Kitb al-luma' l-taawwuf of Ab Nar . . . al-Sarrj al-s ed. by R. A.
Nicholson, 2d edition, London, 1963, p. 322; A. Arberry (tr.), The Doctrine of the Sus,
Cambridge, 1991, pp. 83, 93, 159; al-Makk, Qt, vol. 1, pp. 156157.
69
Smith, Rabi'a, p. 25.
70
A. Arberry, Muslim Saints and Mystics: Episodes from the Tadhkirat al-Auliya" (Memorial
of the Saints) by Farid al-Din Attar, reprint, London, 1990, pp. 3951.
71
Smith, Rabi'a, pp. 3138.
72
Michael Sells, Early Islamic Mysticism, p. 151.
the beginnings 29
73
Ibid., p. 154
30 chapter one
The verse often ascribed to her74 speaks of the two types of love:
one that seeks its own ulterior ends, and one that is directed toward
God alone. It is often quoted as evidence of the dual nature of her
all-consuming passion for the Divine Lover:
I love Thee with two loves: a selsh one and one of which Thou
[alone] art worthy.
The selsh love makes me oblivious of all that is not Thou and causes
me to think only of Thee
As for the love of which Thou [alone] art worthy,
Thou raisest the veils for me so that I may see Thee.
In neither love have I any merit, for the praise for both loves is wholly
Thine.
Elaborating on these poetic lines, al-Ghazl argues that by the selsh
love Rbi'a meant ones love of God as the Bestower of grace and
temporary happiness; by the love that is worthy of him, she implied
the love of his Beauty which He revealed to her. The latter, in al-
Ghazls mind, is far superior to the rst type of love. Anticipating
the theosophical speculations of later Muslim mystics, Rbi'a de-
scribed her arduous attempts to achieve union with the Divine (wal ).
According to one of her verses, My hope is for union with Thee,
for that is the goal of my desire! Elsewhere, she says, I have ceased
to exist and annihilated my own self. I have thus become one with
God and am now altogether His.
Thus, in later accounts of her life and teaching, Rbi'a presents
herself as a true mystic inspired by an ardent love of, and conscious
of having entered into unitive life with, God. Her emphasis on love
of God distinguishes her from contemporary ascetics and quietists who
were preoccupied with abstention from earthly delights, maintaining
ritual purity, voluntary poverty, fear of God, and meticulous observ-
ance of religious duties. In the later Su tradition, Rbi'a is por-
trayed as the rst exponent and the very embodiment of pure,
disinterested love of God for His own sake alone. In a similar vein,
she is depicted as the rst to combine the preaching of divine love
with the doctrine of unveiling (tajall; kashf ) of God before his lover,
that is, of the beatic vision in this world.
74
It has been shown by G. J. H. van Gelder to be part of a secular love poem;
see his Rabi'as Poem on the Two Kinds of Love: A mystication? in: Verse and
the Fair Sex, a collection of papers presented at the 15th Congress of the UEAI . . . 1990. Ed.
F. de Jong, Utrecht 1993, pp. 6676.
32 chapter one
75
Baldick, Mystical Islam, p. 25; cf. van Ess, Theologie, vol. 1, p. 144, note 42.
76
Radtke, Theologien, p. 540.
the beginnings 33
77
Ab Nu'aym, ilya, vol. 8, p. 59; cf. Arberry, Susm, pp. 3839.
78
Reinert, Die Lehre, pp. 172175.
79
Radtke, Theologen, p. 542; Arberry, Susm, pp. 3940.
34 chapter one
80
Al-Sarrj, Luma', p. 209; al-Sulam, abaqt, p. 136; Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder,
vol. 1, p. 327.
81
Ibid., pp. 325332.
82
For proofs of its authenticity see P. Nwyia, Exgse coranique et language mystique,
Beirut, 1970, pp. 213216.
83
I personally doubt that any crisp line can be drawn chronologically or con-
ceptually without skewing the process of the organic, gradual growth of mystical
ideas from the simple piety of Islams rst devotees.
the beginnings 35
84
E.g., he argued that patience (abr) and resignation, or satisfaction [with
the Divine Will] (ri), should be the beginning and the end of each pious act,
see al-Sulam, abaqt, p. 66.
85
Nwyia, Exgse, pp. 213231; idem (ed.), Trois ouevres indites de mystiques musul-
mans, Beirut, 1973, pp. 1721.
CHAPTER TWO
those reported about her namesake from Bara.9 One even wonders
whether we are dealing with a oating motif that eventually led to
the emergence of Rbi'as narrative twin. In any event, it appears
that, in the world of early Islamic piety, Rbi'a al-'Adawiyya of Bara
was far from unique. Nor was the presence of female ascetics conned
to Bara and Iraq.10
It is noteworthy that, contrary to his image in the later Su tra-
dition, Ab Sulaymn hardly considered himself a Su. Although he
did apply this term to other ascetics, namely to Mlik b. Dnr, he
was wary of identifying himself with this group.11 Given Mliks Iraqi
background and Ab Sulaymns ascetic training in Bara and in
'Abbdn early in his career, one may surmise that when he spoke
of Susm he referred primarily to the Iraqi ascetic and mystical
tradition which by that time must have become rmly associated
with the practice of wearing a woolen robe. On the whole, Ab
Sulaymns teaching, as systematized by Ibn Ab l-awr, reveals
a worldview that is more ascetic than mystical in character. His say-
ings consistently emphasize fear of God and humility as the root
of all that is good in this life and the next. Although he did occa-
sionally describe love of God as the mystics ultimate objective or
mention the souls progress through several stages (darajt) to what
he identied as divine gnosis (ma'rifa), he left no systematic account
of this progress on the lines of Shaqiqs. It fell to his followers
to bring his nascent mysticism to fruition.12 Apart from Ibn Ab
l-awr, this task was taken up by Amad b. 'im al-Ank
(d. 220/835) of Antioch. Amad is credited with the authorship of
several treatises that bear a close resemblance to the mystical psy-
chology of the great contemporary thinker al-rith al-Musib
(d. 243/857) of Baghdad. Although the attribution of these treatises
remains uncertain13 and there is little evidence to support A. Arberrys
statement that al-Ank converted contemporary asceticism from a
way of life taken up as a protest against the worldliness prevalent
Ibid., 142144.
9
10 On the pious women of Bara see Pellat, Le milieu basrien, pp. 103106; cf.
Smith, Rabi'a, pp. 143149.
11 Ab Nu'aym, ilya, vol. 9, pp. 275 and 276.
12 See, e.g., R. A. Nicholson, An Historical Enquiry Concerning the Origin and
We know little about Muslim ascetic life in Egypt from the time of
the Muslim conquest up to the turn of the third/ninth century. Given
the existence of a rich tradition of Christian monasticism in Egypt
before Islam,16 it seems likely that it could have exercised certain in-
uence on the nascent Muslim asceticism. However, historical evidence
as to its tendencies and social make-up is very scarce. An early Egyptian
chronicle mentions the rising, in Alexandria, in the year 815, of a
group of pious rebels, described collectively as Sus (al-yya). Led
by a man named 'Abd al-Ramn al-f, the rebels attempted to
persuade the governor to enforce a stricter Muslim code and opposed
those of his decrees which they considered inconsistent with the
Islamic Law.17 This episode is indicative not only of the presence of
p. 162; 'Azz al-Sayyid Jsim, Mutaawwifat Baghdd, Paris, 1994, pp. 6465.
40 chapter two
ascetics on the Egyptian social scene, but also of their active polit-
ical stance; it nds no contemporary parallels in the other parts of
the Muslim world.
This episode notwithstanding, the earliest representative of ascetic
and mystical thought in Egypt known to us was a rather quiet, retir-
ing man named Dhu l-Nn al-Mir (d. 245/860). Born of a Nubian
family at Ikhmm (Akhmm), Upper Egypt, he received his initial
theological training in Syria and in the ijz, where he studied,
among others, with the founder of the Mlik school of law Mlik
b. Anas (d. 179/795) and Fuayl b. 'Iy. In theological matters, he
was a bona de traditionalist who advocated the doctrine of the
create Qur"n. This doctrinal position nearly cost him his life when its
opponents gained the upper hand at the caliphs court in Baghdad
and unleashed a campaign of persecutions against those who disagreed
with their creed of the created Qur"n. Dhu l-Nns mystical say-
ings, which were handed down to us by later Su authorities, as
well as by his contemporary al-rith al-Musib, demonstrate his
intimate familiarity with the vocabulary and ideas of eastern ascetics
and early mystics. During the infamous inquisition (mina) under the
caliph al-Ma"mn (d. 219/833) and his immediate successors, Dhu
l-Nn was arrested on charges of upholding the view that the Qur"n
was uncreated, brought to Baghdad and interrogated. However, he
was released by the order of the caliph al-Mutawakkil who, in
241/855, reversed the religious policy pursued by his predecessors.
In Egypt, he was also persecuted for teaching mystical ideas pub-
licly, but we know nothing about the exact charges brought against
him on that occasion.18 A humble man, who sought to devote him-
self wholly to the worship of God, Dhu l-Nn gathered around him-
self a small circle of followers at Ikhmm, and possibly at Gza, to
which he retired at the end of his life. Most of what is known about
his teaching was preserved by later Su writers, such as Ab Nu'aym
(d. 430/1038), 'Ar (d. ca. 627/1220) and Jm (d. 898/1492), who
quote many of his prayers and homiletics as well as his mystical
poems of considerable literary merit.19 Later Su authors credit him
with the introduction of a systematic teaching about the mystic states
(awl ) and the stations (maqmt) of the mystic path. Thus, accord-
ing to Jm, he is the head of this sect [i.e., the Sus]; they all
descend from him and are related to him. There were Shaykhs
before him, but he was the rst that explained the Su symbolism20
and spoke concerning this path. In some of his statements, Dhu
l-Nn indeed talks about seventeen stations (maqmt ) on the path
to God. He identied the rst of these with the servants response
to the call of God; as for the last station, Dhu l-Nn described it
as mans total surrender to, and trust in, God (idq al-tawakkul ).21
Dhu l-Nns utterances exhibit the erotic symbolism which after-
wards became so prominent in the religious language of the Sus.
He often speaks of God as the mystics intimate Friend (ans) and
Lover (abb), who causes him to love what God loves and to hate
what He hates and to do good always and to shun all that distracts
from God.22 In one famous saying, he addresses God in the fol-
lowing manner, O God! In public I call Thee My Lord, but in
solitude I call Thee My Beloved! Closely linked to the notion of
intimacy with the Divine is Dhu l-Nns teaching about the privi-
leged, intuitive knowledge, or gnosis, of God (ma'rifa). This knowl-
edge sets its possessors, the gnostics ('rifn), apart from other believers.
For him, the gnostics are not themselves, but in so far as they exist
at all they exist in God. Dhu l-Nn distinguishes three kinds of
knowledge: that of the ordinary Muslims; that of the scholars and
sages; and that of Gods friends (awliy"), who see God with their
hearts. The latter, in his view, are the select men of God; as such,
they are endowed with the esoteric gnosis that must not be spoken
about, lest it come to the ears of the profane. In Dhu l-Nns dis-
courses, this higher knowledge is presented as a primeval, pristine
faith that God bestows upon his elect servants from eternitya divine
spark that is cast into mans physical body in order to guide him
aright.23 This notion is probably the closest Dhu l-Nn comes to
Coptic Gnosticism and neo-Platonic ideas which have been routinely
ascribed to him by some Muslim and Western writers who portrayed
him as a theurgist procient in hieroglyphics, alchemy, astrology
and magic. Apart from the mystical elements outlined above,
Dhu l-Nns teaching features traditional ascetic precepts, such as
preponderance of ones fear of Gods wrath over ones hope for his
mercy,24 the duty of repentance, self-renunciation, and sincerity in
word and deed which he eloquently describes as the sword of God
on earth which cuts everything it touches. In other words, there is
simply not enough evidence to view his work as marking the deci-
sive transition from ascetic to mystical piety.25
1
Van Ess, Theologie, vol. 4, p. 195 and 197.
2
Smith, An Early Mystic, pp. 56.
3
According to one account, his father was an adherent of the doctrine that
emphasised [human] free will over against the divine predestination. Another story
describes his father as a Khrijite, ibid., p. 6.
44 chapter three
4
For possible theological issues behind Ibn anbals condemnation of al-Musib
see C. Melchert, The Adversaries of Amad Ibn anbal, in Arabica, vol. 44
(1997), pp. 24244.
5
Van Ess, Theologie, vol. 4, p. 199.
6
Ibid.
7
Melchert, The Adversaries, p. 243.
8
Van Ess, Theologie, vol. 4, p. 197.
the sufism of the baghdad school 45
9
Ibid., p. 83.
10
Al-Musib, Al-Ri'ya li-uqq Allh, ed. by 'Abd al-alm Mamd and 'Abd
al-Qdir 'A, 2d edition, Cairo, 1970, pp. 5253.
46 chapter three
11
Van Ess, Theologie, vol. 4, pp. 197198.
12
Ibid., vol. 4, p. 199.
13
Smith, An Early Mystic, p. 48.
the sufism of the baghdad school 47
14
Die Gedankenwelt des rit al-Musib, Bonn, 1961; idem, Theologie, vol. 4, pp.
200209.
15
Fuyl b. 'Iy, passim.
16
Smith, An Early Mystic, pp. 89, 2743, 256257.
48 chapter three
17
Van Ess, Die Gedankenwelt, p. 10.
18
Ab Nu'aym, ilya, vol. 10, pp. 7685.
19
Van Ess, Theologie, vol. 4, p. 278.
the sufism of the baghdad school 49
20
Gramlich, Alte Vorbilde, vol. 1, pp. 288290; cf. Massignon, Essay, pp. 158159.
21
Ab Nu'aym, ilya, vol. 8, p. 366.
22
Gramlich, Alte Vorbilde, vol. 1, p. 285.
23
Massignon, Essay, p. 158.
24
C. Melchert, The anbila and the Early Sus, an unpublished article that
was kindly presented to me by the author.
50 chapter three
25
On him see Chapter I of this book.
26
Massignon, Essay, pp. 159160.
27
See Ab Nu'aym, ilya, vol. 10, pp. 110112.
the sufism of the baghdad school 51
28
Ibid., p. 119.
29
Ibid., p. 127; B. Reinert, Sar al-Saa, EI, vol. 9, p. 57.
30
Idem, Die Lehre, pp. 118, 123, 131, etc.
52 chapter three
31
Idem, Sar al-Saa, EI, vol. 9, p. 58.
the sufism of the baghdad school 53
32
Ab Nu'aym, ilya, vol. 10, pp. 7475; Junayd, Enseignement spirituel. Trans.
and annotated by R. Deladrire, Paris, 1983, p. 22.
33
Ibid., pp. 1315; according to one tradition al-Junayd requested that upon his
death his works be buried together with him in order to prevent outsiders, i.e.,
non-Sus, from looking into them; van Ess, Theologie, vol. 4, p. 281.
34
Melchert, Transition, p. 67.
35
Arberry, Susm, pp. 5657.
36
Ibid.
54 chapter three
37
Melchert, Transition, p. 67.
38
Anawati and Gardet, Mystique, p. 34.
39
See e.g., al-Sarrj, Luma', pp. 239243.
40
A. H. Abdel-Kader, The Life, Personality and Writings of al-Junaid, London, 1962,
p. 1 (Arabic text).
the sufism of the baghdad school 55
41
Ibid., pp. 45 (Arabic text).
42
Arberry, Susm, p. 57.
43
Abdel-Kader, The Life, pp. 4043 (Arabic text) and passim.
56 chapter three
tumultuous age. Time and again, al-Junayd explicitly advised his dis-
ciples against challenging the temporary and religious authorities of
the age. He viewed political and social activism as a sign of spiri-
tual and intellectual immaturity and an attempt to rebel against the
divine order. His cautious attitude comes to the fore in his disavowal
of the overpowering drunkenness of ecstasy that permeated the say-
ings of his contemporary Ab Yazd al-Bism.44 Al-Junayds glosses
on Ab Yazds ecstatic utterances (shaat) clearly show his prefer-
ence for the state of sobriety over mystical intoxication.45 His dis-
courses are rmly rooted in the Qur"nic notions of Gods uniqueness
and absolute transcendence. He is careful not to present the rela-
tionships between man and God in terms of a union of two essences
(ittid ).46 On the contrary, he never tired of stressing the purely
experiential nature of this phenomenon.
Al-Junayds age was rich in charismatic and mystical talent. Among
his associates and disciples we nd such consequential gures of the
Su tradition as Ab Sa'd al-Kharrz (d. ca. 286/899), Ab amza
al-Khursn (d. between 290/903 and 298/911), 'Amr b. 'Uthmn
al-Makk (d. 291/903 or 297/909), Ab l-usayn al-Nr (d. 295/907),
Ruwaym b. Amad (d. 303/915), Ab Bakr al-Shibl (d. 334/946),
Ab Muammad al-Jurayr (d. 312/924), Ab 'Al al-Rdhbr (d.
322/934), Ja'far al-Khuld (d. 348/959), to name but a few. Theirs was
the time which witnessed an unprecedented eorescence of virtuoso
religiosity. No wonder that students of Islamic mysticism often describe
it as the golden (or classical) age of Susm. Considerations of space
do not allow me to include but a brief account of the leading gures,
each of whom left his distinctive imprint on the tableau of Islamic
mysticism. These individuals of varied ethnic and social backgrounds,
who resided in dierent parts of the Muslim Empire, articulated
what came to be termed the science of Susm ('ilm al-taawwuf ).
44
Baldick, Mystical Islam, p. 46.
45
Al-Sarrj, Luma', pp. 370373.
46
Mol, Les mystiques, p. 67.
the sufism of the baghdad school 57
placed this man, who earned his living mending shoes,47 above al-
Junayd on account of his versatility and eloquence which earned
him the title the Tongue of Susm (lisn al-taawwuf ).48 He was
initiated into Susm by the same spiritual masters as al-Junayd
(namely, Bishr, Sar, and Dhu l-Nn, among others). Yet, unlike his
eminent contemporary who spent most of his life in Baghdad, al-
Kharrz traveled widely from an early age. He visited Ramla,
Jerusalem, and ayda, and lived in Mecca for eleven years. His nal
departure from Baghdad was probably occasioned by the wave of
prosecutions against a group of Baghdad Sus instigated by the
anbal ascetic Ghulm Khall (d. 275/888) in 264/878.49 During
or shortly after this event, he took refuge in Bukhr. Later, he set-
tled in Mecca, where he spent some eleven years, before the local
governor expelled him from that city for slighting the goodness of
ordinary believers.50 He ended his days at Fus (Old Cairo). Later
Su accounts, notably those by al-Anr (d. 481/1089), credit him
with the elaboration of the fan"/baq" theory which was discussed
in the section on al-Junayd.51 For al-Kharrz, it was said, annihilation
and subsequent survival in God are the mystics ultimate goal.52
This report implies that al-Junayd should have been his student, at
least as far as this particular concept is concerned. Al-Kharrzs writ-
ings are directed at two dierent audiences. As most Su masters,
he was concerned with instructing the beginners on the Su path.
To this end he composed his Book of Truthfulness which encour-
aged Su novices to subject their actions and thoughts to a close
scrutiny with a view to establishing their truthfulness (idq) and sin-
cerity (ikhl). The goal of such a scrutiny, according to al-Kharrz,
was to purify the novices acts and words of the slightest trace of
egoism or complacency. Combined with patience and perseverance
in the service of God (abr), these qualities were deemed to assure
the Su beginner a quick and smooth progress along the mystic
path.53 In his more esoteric works, al-Kharrz addressed the needs
47
Van Ess, Theologie, vol. 4, p. 282.
48
Arberry, The Doctrine, p. 13; idem, Muslim Saints, p. 218.
49
Massignon, Recueil, pp. 5152 and 21214; C. Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Susm,
Albany, N.Y., 1984, pp. 9799.
50
Melchert, Transition, p. 64.
51
Massignon, Essay, p. 204.
52
Nwyia, Exgse, pp. 231232.
53
'Abd al-alm Mamd, Al-arq il llah, Kitb al-idq li-Ab Sa' d al-Kharrz,
Cairo, 1979; cf. Nwyia, op. cit., pp. 232233. For possible parallels with the trea-
tises of Isaac of Nineveh see Baldick, Mystical Islam, pp. 4042.
58 chapter three
of a maturer audience. They may have become pretexts for his expul-
sion from Baghdad and Mecca. In the rst, titled The Book of
Luminosity, al-Kharrz deals with seven classes of advanced seek-
ers of God. Each of these classes strives to attain God through a
special type of devotional practice and of meditative techniques. In
accounting for their experiences the seekers of each class avail them-
selves of a distinctive language that reected their particular image
of God. Only those who reach the highest stage of the mystical path
are capable of transcending this plurality of visions and of arriving
at a comprehensive knowledge of God. In the process, their per-
sonal attributes fall away and are supplanted by those of the Godhead.
As a result, they nd themselves on a superior plane of awareness
that eludes ordinary mortals. Al-Kharrz dened their experience as
that of essential union ('ayn al-jam' )a term that gures promi-
nently in al-Junayds writings.54 Here is how Ab Sa'd describes
this experience:
The servant of God who has returned to God and attached himself
to God . . . has completely forgotten himself and all other than God.
Therefore if you were to say to him, Where are you from, and what
do you seek? he would have no other answer but God.55
This statement could well have brought upon him the wrath of
some Sunn scholars. In his Book of Unveiling and Elucidation
(Kitb al-kashf wa l-bayn) al-Kharrz sets out to discuss the relation-
ships between the prophets (anbiy") and the friends of God (awliy")
with a view to repudiating those who place the former above the
latter. In al-Kharrzs argument, sainthood and prophethood fulfil
complementary functions. The principal dierence between them lies
in their respective orientations. Whereas the prophet is entrusted by
God with spreading and enforcing the Divine Law among his com-
munity, the awliy" are absorbed into the contemplation of the divine
majesty, which makes them oblivious of the world around them. In
other words, for al-Kharrz, prophethood and sainthood seem to
represent two distinctive, if complementary, types of relationship be-
tween man and God, that is, ones that correspond respectively to
the outward, or exoteric ( hir), and the inward, or esoteric (bin),
aspects of the Revelation.56 At the same time, al-Kharrz is ever
54
Nwyia, Exgse, pp. 234237; Massignon, Essay, p. 204.
55
Arberry, Muslim Saints, p. 219.
56
Nwyia, Exgse, pp. 237242; cf. Ab Nu'aym, ilya, vol. 10, p. 247.
the sufism of the baghdad school 59
57
Ibid.
58
See M. Chodkiewicz, Seal of the Saints: Prophethood and sainthood in the doctrine of
Ibn 'Arabi, Cambridge, 1993.
59
Nwyia, Exgse, pp. 243310.
60
Van Ess, Theologie, vol. 4, p. 286; cf. Melchert, Transition, pp. 5960.
60 chapter three
61
Arberry, Doctrine, p. 10.
62
Gramlich, Alte Vorbilde, vol. 1, p. 382.
63
R. A. Nicholson, The Kashf al-Majb. The Oldest Persian Treatise on Susm, reprint,
London, 1959, p. 131.
64
Arberry, Doctrine, p. 148.
65
Ibid., p. 46.
the sufism of the baghdad school 61
66
Ab Nu'aym, ilya, vol. 10, pp. 251252.
67
Nwyia, Exgse, p. 317; cf. Ernst, Words of Ecstasy, p. 99.
68
Melchert, Transition, p. 68.
69
See, e.g., Ernst, Words of Ecstasy, pp. 97101; Gramlich, Alte Vorbilde, vol. 1,
pp. 383386.
70
Van Ess, Theologie, vol. 4, pp. 283284.
62 chapter three
71
Ibid., cf. Ab Nu'aym, ilya, vol. 10, pp. 250251; Melchert, Transition,
pp. 6566.
72
Gramlich, Alte Vorbilde, vol. 1, pp. 383384; cf. van Ess, Theologie, vol. 4, pp.
281282.
73
Gramlich, Alte Vorbilde, vol. 1, pp. 390391.
74
Ibid., pp. 394398; cf. Nwyia, Exgse, pp. 345347.
the sufism of the baghdad school 63
75
Al-Sarrj, Luma', p. 210; cf. Gramlich, Alte Vorbilde, vol. 1, p. 387.
76
Melchert, Transition, p. 69; cf. Gramlich, Alte Vorbilde, vol. 1, pp. 425429.
77
Arberry, Muslim Saints, p. 241.
78
Ibid., p. 239.
64 chapter three
79
Idem, Doctrine, p. 85.
80
Ab Nu'aym, ilya, vol. 10, p. 310.
81
Arberry, Doctrine, pp. 164165; idem, Muslim Saints, pp. 239240.
82
Gramlich, Alte Vorbilde, vol. 1, pp. 519522.
the sufism of the baghdad school 65
his disapproval of the blatant disregard for social and religious con-
ventions exhibited by his overly emotional disciple.83 Al-Junayd propen-
sity for secrecy caused him to condemn al-Shibls public preaching
at the mosques of Baghdad, which eventually set him on collision
course with some local jurists.84 While al-Junayd was alive, he man-
aged to keep al-Shibls ery temper under control. However, fol-
lowing his death in 297/910, al-Shibl gave free reign to his eccentric
nature and began to indulge in outrageous behavior and scandalous
statements. His inclination toward a drunken type of mysticism
endeared him to its major exponent in Baghdad, usayn b. Manr
al-allj (d. 309/922), with whom he felt a close emotional anity.
However, during al-alljs trial and execution he kept a low prole
and is said (incorrectly it seems)85 to have publicly disowned his for-
mer friend at the foot of the scaold.86 A later legend even holds
him partly responsible for al-alljs cruel death. This report does
not ring true, since in the aftermath of al-alljs execution al-Shibl
seems to have continued to preach the ideas that bear a close resem-
blance to those of the great Su martyr.87 Furthermore, he carried
on with his bizarre ways and scandalous utterances. When faced
with the prospect of persecution, he aected madness. Al-Shibls
indulgence in eccentrics, such as burning precious aromatic sub-
stances under the tail of his donkey, tearing expensive garments and
tossing gold coins into the crowds88 repeatedly landed him in the
lunatic asylum. His seemingly blasphemous allusions, which de-
scribed his intimacy, or even complete identication, with God enjoyed
wide circulation and were even considered to be one of the three
wonders of Baghdad. He often presented his experiences in the
imagery and language borrowed from bacchic and erotic poetry,
which he was fond of citing. Apart from many mystical paradoxes
and poetic lines, al-Shibl left after him a large group of disciples
many of whom became leading Su masters and Sunn scholars of
their epoch.89
83
Ibid., pp. 555560.
84
Ibid., pp. 523524.
85
Ibid., p. 562.
86
Ibid.
87
Ibid., pp. 560563.
88
Al-Sarrj, Luma', pp. 398406.
89
For a list of his students see Gramlich, Alte Vorbilde, vol. 1, pp. 516517.
66 chapter three
90
Ibid., pp. 483512.
91
Massignon, Passion, vol. 1, p. 71.
the sufism of the baghdad school 67
Al-allj (d. 309/922), Ibn 'A" (d. 309/922) and their followers
(al-alljiyya)
CHAPTER FOUR
1
Massignon, Essay, pp. 191192.
2
Ibid., pp. 185189.
3
See, e.g. Ernst, Words of Ecstasy, pp. 102110 and 133145.
the intoxicated mysticism 69
4
Massignon, Essay, p. 185.
5
R. Deladrire, Ab Yazd al-Bism et son enseignement spirituel, in: Arabica,
vol. 14 (1967), pp. 7980.
6
Ibid., pp. 8081.
7
Al-Sarrj, Luma', p. 325; Baldick, Mystical Islam, pp. 3537; Mol, Mystiques,
pp. 2425.
70 chapter four
8
Van Ess, Theologie, vol. 4, pp. 387395.
9
I have made slight emendations to Arberrys text, Arberry, Susm, pp. 5455.
10
I quote Arberrys translation in Hodgson, Venture, vol. 1, p. 404.
11
Ibid., p. 405; cf. A. Arberry, Revelation and Reason in Islam, London-New York,
1957, pp. 100101 and Ernst, Words of Ecstasy, 4445.
12
Concerning this term describing the state in which the mystic gives voice to
his most intimate experience, which may lay him open to accusations of heresy and
unbelief, see ibid., passim; cf. 'Abd al-Ramn Badaw, Shaat al-yya, Kuwait,
1976.
the intoxicated mysticism 71
13
Hodgson, Venture, vol. 1, p. 405.
14
Badaw, Shaat, p. 28.
15
Subn, a phrase commonly applied only to God.
16
Arberry, Susm, p. 54.
17
Al-Sarrj, Luma', pp. 380393.
72 chapter four
18
Baldick, Mystical Islam, p. 46.
19
Nicholson, The Kashf al-majb, pp. 184188.
the intoxicated mysticism 73
allj was, for a short time, aliated with a clan that supported
the Sh'-based rebellion of the Zanj, the predominantly black slaves
who were employed in the sugar plantations and salt marshes of
southern Iraq. This episode loomed large in the later accusations
against al-allj. His accusers presented him, inaccurately it seems,
as a missionary (d' ) on behalf of the Ism'ls, or Qarmas, who
operated in Arabia and Southern Iraq. Although he may have been
inuenced by some Sh' or Ism'l ideas, he remained profoundly
loyal to Sunnism and continued to lead, at Bara, the life of an
ascetic and devotee. Shortly before the Zanj rebellion was quashed
by the caliphal troops, he departed for Baghdad, where he struck
up friendship with al-Junayd and became a disciple of al-Nr.20
After the brutal suppression of the Zanj rebellion by the caliphs
forces, he set o for Mecca on a pilgrimage.
On reaching the holy city, al-allj made a vow to remain for
one year in the courtyard of the sanctuary, subjecting himself to
spectacular acts of penitence and perpetual fasting. Throughout that
period, he observed a vow of silence and engaged in arduous ascetic
exercises and intense meditation. These extraordinary ascetic feats
soon bore fruit as he began to feel that he had achieved a spiritual
union with God. Contrary to the discipline of secrecy recommended
by sober Su masters, he made his experience public. As a result,
he was disowned by his former teachers, including 'Amr al-Makk,
who had warned him that such experiences should not be divulged
to the uninitiated. Although al-alljs fellow Sus rejected him, his
ery preaching of divine love won him a broad popular following.
On his part, to demonstrate his total break with his former Su
teachers and associates, upon returning to Iraq, al-allj gave up the
traditional Su dress and adopted a lay habit (qab) that was usually
worn by soldiers. This was a symbolic gesture that was deemed to
demonstrate that al-allj no longer considered himself bound by
the Su conventions which strictly prohibited a public discussion of
the union between man and the Divine. In his public sermons al-
allj called upon his audience to nd God within their hearts, the
idea that earned him the nickname allj al-asrr (The Carder of
the Consciences). His public ministry aroused the hatred of the reli-
gious and temporary authorities of the age and further alienated
20
Ernst, Words of Ecstasy, p. 102.
74 chapter four
from him his former associates and masters among the Sus of
Baghdad. At the same time, he made friends with some powerful
'Abbsid courtiers who responded to his teaching with enthusiasm
and became his disciples. Their patronage of the controversial Su
caused resentment among an inuential faction of Mu'tazil and Sh'
leaders who accused him of deception and of practicing false mira-
cles. His powerful foes incited the mob against him, causing him to
leave Iraq for Khursn. Undeterred by his exile, al-allj contin-
ued to spread his message among the Arab settlers of Khursn for
ve years. For some time, he resided in the fortied ascetic lodges
which housed volunteer ghters in the holy war against the pagan
populations of eastern Iran and Central Asia. Upon his return to
Iraq, he moved to Baghdad together with his family.
His fame now had grown so that when he set out on a pilgrim-
age to Mecca for a second time, a cohort of four hundred disciples
joined him. Soon after al-allj had arrived in the holy city, he ran
afoul of the local scholars and Sus who accused him of magic and
sorcery as well as of making a pact with the jinn. These accusations
do not seem to have detracted from his popularity among the com-
mon folk. After returning from his second ajj, he undertook a long
journey to India and Turkestan, where he may have been exposed
to the inuence of Hinduism, Manichaeism and Buddhism. About
290/902, al-allj returned to Mecca for his third and last pil-
grimage. Clad in the muraqqa'a, a piece of patched cloth thrown
round his shoulders, with an Indian loin-cloth round his waist, he
prayed God to reduce him to nothingness, to render him despised
and rejected. At the same time, he called upon God to proclaim
himself through the heart and the lips of his servant.
Upon joining his family in Baghdad, al-allj behaved erratically.
At night he prayed in the cemeteries and in the daytime he pro-
claimed in the streets and the bazaars his burning love of God and
his desire to die at the hands of his fellow believers. On several
occasions, he called upon his listeners to save him from God by
putting him to a cruel death. Furthermore, he provoked a public
scandal by setting up in the yard of his house a model of the Ka'ba
sanctuary and by circumambulating it during the pilgrimage season.
Al-alljs actions and preaching aroused popular emotion and caused
anxiety among the educated classes. The famous hir scholar
Muammad b. Dwd strongly denounced his statements that asserted
the possibility of mutual love between God and man and demanded
the intoxicated mysticism 75
his execution.21 His legal ruling was contested by the Sh' jurist
Ibn Surayj, who maintained that mystic inspiration fell outside the
jurisdiction of the courts. It was in this period that, according to a
hostile account, al-allj replied to al-Shibl, in the mosque of al-
Manr, by probably the most famous ecstatic utterance: an l-aqq,
I am the Truth [i.e., God], implying that he had achieved a com-
plete identication with the Divine.
Al-alljs public preaching set on foot a broad popular move-
ment aimed at a moral reform of the community. His condemna-
tion of social inequities and injustices had long-ranging political
implications which irritated the religious and military authorities of
the 'Abbsid capital. At the same time, those who believed in his
mission proclaimed him the hidden spiritual Pole of his epoch ( qub
al-zamn). Apart from the masses of Baghdad, who continued to
respond to his preaching with great enthusiasm, he was able to win
the powerful viziers, Ibn amdn and Ibn 's, over to his cause.
His involvement in the courtly intrigues made him many inuential
enemies as well. In 296/908, following an unsuccessful coup dtat
and the restoration of the infant caliph al-Muqtadir, al-allj found
himself among the enemies of the newly appointed vizier, the power-
ful Sh' nancier Ibn al-Furt. Although initially he was able to
escape Ibn al-Furts wrath by eeing to Ss in the province of Ahwz,
three years later he was apprehended and brought back to Baghdad.
This time he fell victim to the hatred of the Sunn governor of Wsi,
mid, who would later preside over al-alljs last trial. Accused
of claiming divine lordship and preaching incarnationism (ull ), he
was thrown in prison in Baghdad, where he remained for nine years.
In 301/913, the cultured vizier Ibn 's, cousin of one of al-alljs
disciples, threw out evidence against al-allj as fabricated and
ordered his imprisoned supporters to be released. Nevertheless, suc-
cumbing to pressure from al-alljs enemies, including the chief of
the Baghdad police, the vizier was unable to forestall a public humil-
iation of his Su protg: al-allj was exposed on the pillory for
four days, while the crier announced, Behold, here is the mission-
ary of the Qarmas! In the following years he remained impris-
oned, mostly at the caliphs palace, where he preached his message
to other prisoners. Further attempts to put him on trial oundered
21
Ibid.
76 chapter four
22
Ibid., p. 104.
23
Qur"n, 53:9.
24
On him see Nwyia, Trois oeuvres, pp. 25182.
25
Ernst, Words of Ecstasy, pp. 105106.
the intoxicated mysticism 77
26
Al-Tankh, Nishwr al-muara. Ed. by 'Abbd al-Shalj, Beirut, 1971, vol. 1,
p. 164; cf. Ernst, Words of Ecstasy, p. 107.
78 chapter four
al-Furt and, later on, his Sunn successor mid. Al-alljs appeals
for a moral and spiritual reform of Islam, combined with his advo-
cacy for social justice struck fear in the hearts of the upper classes
of the capital. His preaching in the streets and bazaars of Baghdad
was interpreted as sedition and rabble-rousing by many high-rank-
ing secular and religious ocials, especially the Mliks and the
anafs, who were instrumental in bringing about his execution.
Surprisingly, al-alljs strongest supporters seem to have been the
anbals who had considerable inuence on the common people
of Baghdad. Their support helps to explain why al-allj survived
several earlier trials. At the same time, his bold rejection of pru-
dence and discipline of secrecy in dealing with the uninitiated mem-
bers of the community led to his disavowal by his fellow Sus, who
were anxious to keep a low social prole following the trial against
the proponents of divine love instigated by Ghulm Khall. Likewise,
many Su leaders saw al-alljs indulgence in public miracles as a
quest for cheap popularity and an irresponsible use of the divine
powers which God bestowed upon His elect friends.27 Al-alljs
detractors, including some inuential courtiers of a Mu'tazil slant,
blamed him for staging his miracles in order to achieve ulterior
goals.28 Finally, his bold proclamation of his union with God insulted
many mainstream scholars, who accused him of blasphemy and of
claims to ull (a substantial union with God similar to the Christian
theory of incarnation). In a similar vein, his emphasis on the inner
signicance of ritual acts, such as the ajj and the prayer, was inter-
preted by some literalist scholars as an attempt to abolish the acts
themselves.
Even more crucial for al-alljs tragic death was the troubled
political atmosphere of the epoch which witnessed grave threats to
the 'Abbsid state. On the home front, the dynasty was faced with
a broad popular discontent that was fuelled by the irresponsible social
and scal policies of the increasingly shaky government in Baghdad.
Externally, the caliphate had to deal with the secession of the provinces
and the rise of various chiliastic movements that operated on its very
doorstep, in Lower Iraq, Eastern Arabia and in the Syrian Desert.
Through his wife, al-allj was linked to the Sh' rebellion of the
Zanj; his travels to the distant lands were interpreted as being related
27
Anawati and Gardet, Mystique, p. 38.
28
Al-Tankh, Nishwr, vol. 1, pp. 159169.
the intoxicated mysticism 79
29
Ibid., p. 162.
30
Ibid., pp. 162163.
31
Baldick, Mystical Islam, p. 53.
32
L. Massignon, Akhbr al-allj, Paris, 1936, passim.
80 chapter four
33
Qur"n, 38:7185.
34
P. Awn, Satans Tragedy and Redemption: Iblis in Su psychology, Leiden, 1993,
p. 126.
35
Ibid., p. 124.
36
L. Massignon, The Passion of al-allj. Vol. 2. The Survival of al-allj. Trans.
by H. Mason, Princeton, 1982.
the intoxicated mysticism 81
37
Bwering, Mystical Vision, p. 93.
38
Ibid., p. 23, apud A. Arberry.
39
Ibid.
40
Nicholson, Kashf, pp. 130131 and 260266.
82 chapter four
41
Massignon, Essay, pp. xxvii xxix, 35, 5657, etc.
42
See, e.g., Nwyia, Exgse, pp. 1014.
CHAPTER FIVE
1
Melchert, Transition, passim.
84 chapter five
2
Bwering, Mystical Vision, p. 82.
ascetic and mystical movements 85
citys Sus. Another group, of which the stern anbal preacher al-
Barbahr (d. 329/941) was the most notable representative, settled
in the Muawwal quarter of Baghdad. Those of al-Tustars follow-
ers who chose to stay in Bara formed a distinct theological school,
the Slimiyya. It derived its name from its leader Amad b. Slim,
the son of his lifelong companion Muammad b. Slim. The tenets
of the Slimiyya received their nal articulation in the work of
Amads disciple, Ab lib al-Makk (d. 386/996), whose monu-
mental book Nourishment for the Hearts had a profound inuence
on al-Ghazls Revivication of the Religious Sciences.3 In the
rst half of the fth/eleventh century, the schools theological propo-
sitions (related mostly to the beatic vision and to other events on
the Day of Judgement) come under the attack of some anbal the-
ologians. Since these theological debates have no direct bearing on
al-Tustars mysticism, they need not be discussed here.4 One should,
however, point out that al-Tustars admission that the mystic can
experience a contemplative witnessing of God (mukshafa) in this life
through the light of certitude (nr al-yaqn), which God grants to
him as a reward for his loyalty and self-abnegation,5 exposed him
to accusations of blasphemy. Such accusations were leveled at him
and at his followers by those conservative scholars who interpreted
his statements about nr al-yaqn as contrary to the mainline Muslim
doctrine that a beatic vision cannot be experienced by the faithful
until the Day of Resurrection.6 In the later heresiograpic literature,
we nd the mention of the ulmniyya sect, which allegedly pushed
the doctrine of the Slimiyya to its logical conclusion by claiming
that God can dwell in any beautiful object or individual. Basing him-
self on this idea, the founder of the sect, Ab ulmn al-Fris
(ourished in the second half of the third/ninth century), a Persian
mystic who resided in Damascus, called upon his followers to pros-
trate themselves before handsome individuals, beautiful plants, ani-
mals, or other objects. He argued that the perfection of their forms
was a corporeal reection of Gods eternal beauty, and, as such,
must be worshiped by all believers. Whether the ulmniyya was
in any way related to the Slimiyya7 or to an ascetic and mystical
3
Ibid., pp. 2527.
4
Ibid., pp. 9495.
5
Ibid., pp. 207216.
6
Van Ess, Theologie, vol. 4, pp. 411415.
7
Nicholson, The Kashf, pp. 131 and 260.
86 chapter five
8
Van Ess, Theologie, vol. 1, p. 144.
9
Al-Sarrj, Luma', p. 468.
10
Bwering, Mystical Vision, pp. 153157.
ascetic and mystical movements 87
11
G. Makdisi, Ash'ar and the Ash'arites in Islamic Religious History, in: StI,
vol. 17 (1962), p. 54.
12
Bwering, Mystical Vision, p. 93.
13
Massignon, Essay, p. 201.
88 chapter five
One regional ascetic school that did not survive the ideological expan-
sion of Baghdad Susm was the Karrmiyya, which ourished in
Jerusalem, Transoxania and Khursn from the third/ninth century
until the Mongol conquest. Its eponymous founder, Ibn Karrm
(d. 255/869), claimed to be of Arab descent, although his detrac-
tors routinely ridiculed him on account of his Persian accent.14 In
his youth Ibn Karrm traveled widely across Khursn and Afghanistn,
where he associated with many spiritual masters and adth trans-
mitters, including those who were considered unreliable by experts
on Islamic traditions. In Nshpr he studied with the local ascetic
Amad Ibn arb (d. 234/848), a ery orator whose sermons incul-
cating piety and godliness drew enthusiastic crowds. Deeply impressed
by Ibn arbs popularity with the masses of Nshpr, Ibn Karrm
imitated his oratory style throughout his subsequent career. How-
ever, he went further than his teacher by adopting an itinerant life-
style that allowed him to spread his pious message far and wide.15
After residing in Mecca for ve years, he returned to his home in
Sijistn, where he relinquished all his possessions in favor of holy
poverty and put on a garb of penitence made of the rough sheepskin.
He then embarked on the career of a public preacher, inculcating
in his audience fear of God and desire of Paradise. To this end, he
made use of some prophetic sayings of eschatological character, the
authenticity of which was doubted by professional adth transmitters.
Irritated by his preaching, the governor of Sijistn ordered his exe-
cution. However, fearing a popular unrest, he desisted and simply
expelled Ibn Karrm from his province.16 The preacher then with-
14
Ibid., p. 174.
15
J. Chabbi, Remarques sur le dveloppment historique des mouvements asc-
tiques et mystiques au Khurasan, StI, vol. 46 (1977), pp. 30 and 41, pp. 4849.
16
Ibid., p. 49.
ascetic and mystical movements 89
17
Ibid., pp. 5152.
18
Van Ess, Theologie, vol. 4, pp. 408410.
19
Massignon, Essay, p. 174, note 96; cf. idem, Recueil, p. 24.
20
Chabbi, Remarques, p. 30.
21
R. Bulliet, The Patricians of Nishapur, Cambridge, Mass., 1972, p. 42.
90 chapter five
22
Ibid., p. 43.
23
Chabbi, Remarques, p. 50.
24
Idem, Rexions, in: Journal Asiatique, vol. 266 (1978), pp. 5253; Bulliet,
The Patricians, p. 43.
25
Massignon, Essay, p. 175.
ascetic and mystical movements 91
26
Chabbi, Remarques, p. 45.
27
M. J. de Goeje (ed.), Descriptio imperii moslemicici autore . . . al-Moqaddasi, Leiden,
1906, p. 365.
28
Ibid., p. 336.
29
Chabbi, Remarques, pp. 3738.
92 chapter five
30
See, e.g., Massignon, Essay, p. 180; Arberry, Muslim Saints, p. 179; cf. Meier,
Abu Sa'd, pp. 148184.
31
Chabbi, Remarques, p. 30.
32
Al-Qushayr, Al-Risla al-qushayriyya 'ilm al-taawwuf. Ed. by Ma'rf Zurayq
and 'Al Balarj, Beirut, 1993, p. 414; Massignon, Recuiel, pp. 24 and 26.
33
Al-Khab al-Baghdd, Ta"rkh Baghdd, reprint, Beirut, no date, vol. 14,
p. 208.
34
Ibid., p. 209; Ab lib al-Makk, Qt, vol. 1, p. 166; cf. Meier, Ab Sa'd,
p. 173.
ascetic and mystical movements 93
35
Chabbi, Remarques, pp. 5155.
36
Nicholson, The Kashf, p. 123; cf. Arberry, Sus, pp. 6162.
37
Al-Khab al-Baghdd, Ta"rkh, vol. 14, pp. 209212.
38
Meier, Abu Sa'd, pp. 167168; al-Sulam, abaqt, p. 303.
39
Al-Sarrj, Luma', p. 188.
40
Ibid., pp. 365 and 224; cf. Meier, Abu Sa'd, p. 174.
41
Ibid., p. 182.
94 chapter five
42
Ibid.; cf. B. Radtke, Al-akm at-Tirmi: Ein islamischer Theosoph des 3./9.
Jahrhunderts, Freiburg, 1980, p. 95.
43
Meier, Abu Sa'd, pp. 178179.
44
Ibid., pp. 183184 and passim.
45
Nicholson, The Kashf, p. 62.
46
Gramlich, Alte Vorbilde, vol. 2, pp. 155168.
ascetic and mystical movements 95
47
Ibid., pp. 175241.
48
A. Karamustafa, Gods Unruly Friends, p. 30.
49
Ab l-'Al" 'Aff, Al-Malmatiyya wa l-yya wa ahl al-futuwwa, Cairo, 1945,
pp. 93, 94, 101, 106, 108, and passim.
50
Chabbi, Remarques, pp. 5354.; van Ess, Theologie, vol. 2, pp. 610611.
96 chapter five
51
Chabbi, Remarques, pp. 6772.
52
Nichoslon, The Kashf, p. 125.
53
Arberry, The Doctrine, p. 148.
54
Nicholson, The Kashf, p. 134.
55
Al-Sulam, Al-Malmatiyya, pp. 102103.
56
Nicholson, The Kashf, pp. 123126 and 134; cf. Arberry, The Doctrine, p. 13.
57
Al-Sulam, abaqt, pp. 117118.
ascetic and mystical movements 97
58
Arberry, Muslim Saints, pp. 290291; cf. Mol, Mystiques, pp. 7576.
59
Gramlich, Alte Vorbilde, vol. 2, pp. 192217.
60
Chabbi, Remarques, pp. 6869 and passim.
61
Arberry, The Doctrine, p. 91; cf. Ibn al-Qayarn, afwat al-taawwuf. Ed. by
Ghad al-Muqaddam 'Adra, Beirut, 1995, p. 96.
62
On him see Chapter 2 of this book.
63
Bulliet, Patricians, p. 43.
64
Al-Sulam, abaqt, pp. 125129.
98 chapter five
In a like vein, both the Malmat and the futuwwa leaders urged their
adherents to give preference to other people, no matter how sinful
and lowly, over their own selves (thr) in order to avoid vainglori-
ous pretensions.65 On the practical level, the members of both the
Malmatiyya and the futuwwa associations seem to have practiced
common initiatory ceremonies and adhered to a special, albeit low-
key, dress-code. They also took a common negative stance vis--vis
the extreme manifestations of reliance on God (tawakkul ) that were
not uncommon among the Karrmiyya and some Su masters. Since
the membership of the futuwwa organizations and of the craft guilds,
which were also permeated by the Malmat principles, consisted
mainly of small-time merchants, artisans and shopkeepers, their lead-
ers could ill-aord to demand that their adherents should abandon
gainful employment. However, at least some of the movements lead-
ers may have been full-time ascetics, at least toward the end of
their careers.66 This did not prevent them from emphasizing self-
eacing probity and fair dealing, anonymous charity, moderation
and good works, all of which tallied well with the values of the
responsible middle class citizenry. The exact nature of the relation-
ships between the futuwwa and the Malmatiyya traditions is hard
to establish due to their secretive character. According to R. Bulliet,
while the futuwwa conception of the ideal young man ( fat) as a con-
vivial and loyal squire who was as adept at poetry as at archery
was not in consonance with the [Malmat] mystics vision of a
chaste and fraternal disciple following his master on the mystic path,
neither was there dissonance between them. They coexisted.67 The
exact extent of the interpenetration between these traditions and their
respective practices and institutions remains obscure.
With time, however, some antinomian-minded drifters and trick-
sters, who actively sought the blame of others instead of being ready
to humbly accept it, adopted the name Malmat. The subsequent
unfolding of the libertarian and antisocial potential inherent in the
Malmat teaching is associated with the activities of the wandering
dervishes who brought the entire movement into disrepute. A revival
of some of the original Malmat ideals and practices, especially the
avoidance of a distinctive garb and a loud dhikr, the prohibition of
65
Ibid., pp. 116122.
66
See, e.g., al-Qushayr, Al-Risla, p. 69, regarding Ab af.
67
Bulliet, Patricians, p. 44.
ascetic and mystical movements 99
ceaseless voyaging and the cultivation of close ties with the people
of the bazaar, is sometimes associated with the Naqshband brother-
hood, which was active in Central Asia and India in the ninth/
fteenth-thirteenth/nineteenth centuries and which falls outside the
chronological scope of this chapter.
68
Karamustafa, Gods Unruly Friends, p. 31.
69
Chabbi, Rexions; idem, Remarques.
100 chapter five
70
Massignon, Passion, vol. 3, passim; cf. Chabbi, Rexions, pp. 4853 and
idem, Remarques, passim.
71
Nicholson, The Kashf, p. 154.
72
Gramlich, Alte Vorbilde, vol. 2, pp. 267411.
73
E.g., al-Qushayr, Al-Risla, p. 439, concerning the necessity to maintain a bal-
ance between fear and hope (cf. Yay b. Mu'dh, above).
74
He was probably referring to the Manichean concern with perfecting ones
piety through ascetic exercises. At that time Manichaens were still active in both
Mesopotamia and Persia.
ascetic and mystical movements 101
75
Gramlich, Alte Vorbilde, vol. 2, pp. 347348; cf. Arberry, The Doctrine, p. 91
and Chabbi, Rexions, p. 46.
76
Ibid., pp. 4647.
77
Al-Sulam, abaqt, pp. 172 and 303; cf. Radtke, Al-akm, p. 95.
78
Chabbi, Remarques, p. 64; cf. Bulliet, Patricians, p. 41, which mentions the
progression from three to forty-three Sus in Nshpr.
102 chapter five
79
A. Arberry, The Mawqif and Mukhabt of Muammad Ibn 'Abdi l-Jabbr al-
Niar, London, 1935, p. 1.
80
Ibid.
81
Nwyia, Exgse, pp. 352353, note 5; cf. Sells, Early Islamic Mysticism, p. 281.
82
Arberry, Susm, p. 64.
83
Nwyia, Exgse, pp. 357358; cf. Arberry, The Mawqif, pp. 1416.
ascetic and mystical movements 103
84
Sells, Early Islamic Mysticism, p. 283.
85
Qur"n, 53:111.
86
Nwiya, Exgse, p. 358.
87
Arberry, Susm, p. 64.
88
Arberry, The Mawqif, p. 52; I have made some minor changes to Arberrys text.
89
Or, perhaps, I saw Poverty to be lacking.
104 chapter five
90
Ibid., p. 14.
91
Ibid., p. 16.
92
Ibid., p. 14.
93
Qur"n, 2:117; Nwyia, Exgse, pp. 386387; cf. Baldick, Mystical Islam, p. 54.
94
Nwyia, Exgse, p. 359.
95
Van Ess, Theologie, vol. 4, pp. 411424.
96
Arberry, The Mawqif, pp. 1819.
97
Baldick, Mystical Islam, p. 54.
98
Nwyia, Exgse, pp. 386387.
ascetic and mystical movements 105
99
According to A. Arberry, Niar was not interested in Mahd pretensions:
his kingdom was of the next world, not of this, The Mawqif, p. 7; cf. ibid., pp.
198 and 215.
100
Radtke, Theologen, pp. 562563; idem. Al-akm, pp. 9495; S. Sviri, akm
Tirmidh and the Malmat Movement in Early Susm, in: L. Lewisohn (ed.),
Classical Persian Susm, London and New York, 1993, pp. 583613; van Ess, Theologie,
vol. 2, p. 565.
101
Van Ess, ibid.
102
Radtke, Al-akm, pp. 1215.
103
Ibid., 16.
104
Ibid., p. 34.
105
Ibid., 17 and 36.
106 chapter five
106
Ibid., p. 83.
107
Ibid. 16.
108
Ibid., p. 18.
109
Ibid. 59.
ascetic and mystical movements 107
110
Lit. the taming of the soul.
111
Ibid., pp. 8389.
108 chapter five
entities that pertain to the light of the pact (nr mthq ). Every
mans senses and intelligence recognize it by analogy with the light
of destinies of which all of mankind partake to some extent.
Ibls refused to bow before Adam, whose body and soul were
made from a soil that he himself had trampled underfoot. He chal-
lenged Adam to prove his superiority over him. In the aftermath of
mans fall, God declared that Ibls should be able to rule only over
the wicked. He would be leading them astray by appealing to their
appetites and passions of the moment, which inhere in their fallible
souls. God however accepted the repentance of Adam and promised
to send prophets to the faithful in order to help them to vanquish the
evil drives of their souls by appealing to a hundred virtuous traits of
their character (which derive from the corresponding divine attributes),
through reason, gnosis and the ve components of intelligence.112
The fundamental duality of human nature, which springs from
the conflict between mans heart/spirit and his soul/ego, results, in
al-Tirmidhs anthropology, in a multiplicity of organs and faculties.
Thus he speaks of the external soul (which is nothing other than the
body with its members and organs and which, due to its senses,
already has some embryonic knowledge). In addition, al-Tirmidh
describes the internal soul which is located in the lung and which
was fashioned by God from the soil trampled underfoot by Ibls. Al-
Tirmidh distinguishes the heart (both the organ and the faculty);
reason (located in the brain); and the spirit (located in the head,
below the ears). Finally, he speaks of the ve components of intel-
ligence (located in the chest): intelligence proper (dhihn), memory
(if), understanding ( fahm), perspicacity (dhak") and knowledge. All
the faculties, which Adam and his descendants received on the Day
of the Pact, form their inborn nature ( ra).
Thus, according to al-Tirmidhi, all men are endowed at the out-
set with natural reason ('aql al-ra), which, in theory, should make
all of them faithful servants of God. Their duty is to use this nat-
ural reason in combination with the ve components of intelligence.
The intelligence proper (dhihn), with the help of understanding ( fahm),
receives exterior knowledge (sensible awareness) in bulk. It then con-
veys it to the breast, upon the lining of which each idea leaves an
imprint of its form. After that the dhihn communicates the ideas to
the memory, which is also located in the breast. When the heart is
112
Ibid., pp. 6465.
110 chapter five
113
Sviri, Hakim Tirmidhi, p. 611.
114
Ibid.
ascetic and mystical movements 111
115
Ibid.
112 chapter five
of the saintsthat is, the supreme saint of all times who brings
to an end the cycle of universal sainthoodhas proved to be both
the most controversial and the most consequential. Al-Tirmidh
may have borrowed this idea from contemporary Sh' theorists, who
assigned the status of the ultimate messiah and world-restorer to their
hidden imm, viewing him as the channel of divine grace to this
world. The Sh' concept, in turn, was probably formulated in response
to the Sunn doctrine that presented Muammad as the last link in,
or the seal of, universal prophesy, which precluded any possibility
of direct communication between God and his community after his
demise.
Al-Tirmidhs legacy left a deep imprint on the subsequent his-
tory of Islamic thought. His inuence is perceptible in the works of
the great later mystic and preacher 'Abd al-Qdir al-Jln. In many
respects he can be seen as a precursor of Ibn 'Arab, who quoted
him extensively in his works. Finally, the Sh' elements of his teach-
ing, which have just been pointed out, are an eloquent evidence of
the common roots of Su and Sh ' esotericism.
In Ibn Masarra al-Jabal (d. 319/931) we nd another isolated mys-
tical thinker without any known spiritual or intellectual aliation.
This fact, together with the originality and obscurity of his teach-
ing, eectively placed him outside the mainstream Su pale and into
the realm of heresy and freethinking. As a result, he was practically
unknown to the creators of the Su tradition, most of whom hailed
from the eastern lands of Islam and had little notion of mystical
movements west of Egypt. Ibn Masarras relative obscurity is akin
to that of al-Tirmidh. Yet, there are dierences as well. Unlike al-
Tirmidh, most of Ibn Masarras works have been lost or destroyed
by his persecutors, when he was posthumously accused of heresy and
anti-government sedition (bid'a wa haw wa tna wa zaygh).116 Passages
from his works quoted by later authors show him to be a practi-
tioner of an extreme asceticism who constantly engaged in a subtle
self-analysis ('ilm al-bin) with a view to eliminating complacency and
purifying his acts of worship of any extraneous concerns. Together
with a group of devoted disciples he withdrew into a mountainous
retreat in the vicinity of Cordoba, where they engaged in acts of
harsh worship and in theosophical speculation. His puritanical
116
M. I. Fierro, Heresy in al-Andalus, in: The Legacy of Muslim Spain. Ed. by
S. K. Jayyusi, Leiden, 1994, vol. 2, p. 900.
114 chapter five
fervor is evident from his rejection of things that were normally per-
mitted by the Shar'a. Combined with his acute interest in cosmol-
ogy and metaphysics, his ideas made him a natural suspect in the
eyes of his learned contemporaries.117 Given the intolerant religious
attitude that prevailed in his native al-Andalus, it is no wonder that
he came to be portrayed by local Mlik scholars as an out-and-out
heretic. Some European scholars uncritically accepted this polemical
image of Ibn Masarra and declared him a bona de neo-Platonist,
a follower of Pseudo-Empedocles and an Ism'l missionary. Recent
studies have dispelled these misconceptions118 and they need not
detain us here. From the scant details about his life scattered through-
out Andalus chronicles one can conclude that from a very young
age he was exposed to various eastern Islamic inuences, including
Mu'tazil theology and, more importantly, to the ascetic and mysti-
cal tradition of al-Tustars school. His long trips to Mecca and Iraq
later in his life point in the same direction. The exact sources of his
views, however, cannot be ascertained. His interest in cabalism and
numerology may have been ignited by his study of al-Tustars Book
of the Letters, 119 but the dubious attribution of this work makes the
link between the two thinkers somewhat tenuous.120 Ibn Masarras
fascination with rational sciences and, especially, with the inductive
method (i'tibr), which he used in order to establish the general laws
that govern the universe, does not necessarily render him a fully-
edged philosopher. Rather he hews closely to the inspired wisdom
of the ukam" sages on the lines of al-Tirmidh and his soul-mates
in Khursn and Transoxania.121 For Ibn Masarra, such sages, who
combine rational method with divine inspiration, were identical with
the the friends of God mentioned in many passages of the Qur"n.
The sages obtain their gnosis both through rigorous ascetic exercises
and a thorough contemplation of Gods creation. The fact that he
adopted some Mu'tazil ideas, especially those that emphasized mans
freedom of choice and his responsibility for his actions, hardly makes
117
D. Urvoy, The 'Ulam" of al-Andalus, in: ibid., pp. 855856; cf. Radtke,
Theologen, p. 553.
118
Ibid. and S. M. Stern, Ibn Masarra, Follower of Pseudo-Empedoclesan illu-
sion, in: Actos do IV Congresso de Estudios Arabes e Islmocos, Coimbra-Lisbon, 1968,
Leiden, 1971, pp. 325339; van Ess, Theologie, vol. 4, pp. 273274.
119
C. Addas, Andalus Mysticism and the Rise of Ibn 'Arab, in: The Legacy
of Muslim Spain. Ed. by S. K. Jayyusi, Leiden, 1994, vol. 2, pp. 915917.
120
Bwering, Vision, pp. 1718.
121
Radtke, Theologen, passim; cf. Addas, Andalus Mysticism, p. 917.
ascetic and mystical movements 115
122
Van Ess, Theologie, vol. 4, p. 273.
123
Addas, Andalus Mysticism, p. 917.
124
Ibid.
125
Ibid., pp. 918919.
CHAPTER SIX
1
Bwering, Mystical Vision, pp. 2134.
the systematization of the sufi tradition 117
2
Arberry, Susm, p. 66.
3
Chabbi, Rexions, p. 37.
4
Bwering, Mystical Vision, pp. 2021.
118 chapter six
5
Radtke, Adab al-mulk.
the systematization of the sufi tradition 119
6
Al-Sarrj, Luma', pp. 710 (Arabic text); cf. pp. 35 (English text).
120 chapter six
Scriptures in their own lives. They have thus achieved the exem-
plary piety and serenity which set them apart from the common
herd of believers.7 Not only are the genuine Sus in complete con-
formity with the Divine Law, they are, in fact, the spiritual lite (al-
kha) of the Islamic Community.
After this apologetic introduction, al-Sarrj sets out to elucidate
the ideas, practices and terminology accumulated by Sus over the
centuries. He devotes several chapters to the discussion of the states
and stages of the mystical path, the rules of Su companionship,
saintly miracles, and the controversial ecstatic utterances of some
early mystics. He also addresses what he sees as the theoretical and
practical mistakes which some of them are guilty of. In the words
of A. Arberry, al-Sarrjs Luma' is extraordinary well-documented,
and abounds in quotations not only from the sayings and poems but
also from the letters of the mystics.8 Al-Sarrjs denitions of the
Su technical terms are precise and subtle, giving his readers a valu-
able clue to understanding sophisticated mystical texts. Each chap-
ter of his work forms an autonomous treatise on a given aspect of
Su theory or practice. At the same time, in an eort to categorize
the personal mystical experiences of individual Su masters, al-Sarrj
has the tendency by put their accounts into a number of prefabri-
cated conceptual pigeonholes. This tendency comes to the fore in
his analysis of the stations and states of the Su path which attempts
to set them in neat triads, sometimes rather articially. An honest
and well-informed thinker, al-Sarrj does not conceal his own views
which place him squarely into the tradition of sober mysticism
personied by al-Junayd.9 At the same time, he is not opposed to
such controversial Su practices as listening to mystical poetry and
music during Su sessions, provided that no prohibited musical instru-
ments be used by the participants. Al-Sarrjs broad-mindedness is
also evident from his defense of the ecstatic utterances of al-Bism
against his critics, including Amad b. Slim who held the mystic
of Bism to be an indel (kr).10 This does not prevent al-Sarrj
from denouncing what he perceived as Su errors and excesses,
thereby demarcating the limits of Su orthodoxy.11
7
Ibid., pp. 1315 (Arabic text).
8
Arberry, Susm, p. 67.
9
Baldick, Mystical Islam, p. 55.
10
Al-Sarrj, Luma', pp. 390391 (Arabic text).
the systematization of the sufi tradition 121
Ab lib al-Makk
11
Ibid.
12
Al-Khab, Ta"rkh, vol. 3, p. 89; cf. Bwering, Mystical Vision, p. 26.
13
Ibid., pp. 2627.
14
Arberry, Susm, p. 68.
122 chapter six
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid., pp. 6869; apud al-Makk, Qt, vol. 1, p. 160.
17
Bwering, Mystical Vision, p. 27.
the systematization of the sufi tradition 123
primordial light and the covenant between God and the human
souls. However, in comparison to the Nourishment, the impact of
this work on the later Su thought was much more limited.
18
One of his teachers was Fris b. 's al-Dnawar (d. 345/956), a student of
al-allj who ed from Iraq following his teachers execution, Chabbi, Rexions,
pp. 45 and 49.
19
Arberry, Susm, p. 69.
124 chapter six
20
Idem, Doctrine, pp. 82104.
21
Ibid., pp. 104136.
22
Bwering, Mystical Vision, p. 24; in all, al-Kalbdh cites more than eighty
Su masters, Chabbi, Rexions, p. 42.
23
Ibid., p. 52; Arberry, Doctrine, pp. 90 and 150.
24
Ibid., pp. 137167.
25
Chabbi, Rexions, p. 42.
26
Ibid., p. 43.
27
Ibid., p. 45.
28
Ibid., pp. 5254.
the systematization of the sufi tradition 125
29
G. Bwering, The Qur"n Commentary of al-Sulam, in W. Hallaq and
D. Little (eds.), Islamic Studies Presented to Charles J. Adams, Leiden, 1991, p. 44.
30
Bulliet, Patricians, pp. 115116.
31
Gramlich, Alte Vorbilde, vol. 1, p. 516; Bulliet, Patricians, p. 150.
32
Bwering, Mystical Vision, p. 29.
126 chapter six
33
Bwering, Quran Commentary, pp. 4546.
the systematization of the sufi tradition 127
34
Ibid., p. 56.
35
Chabbi, Remarques, p. 69.
36
Bwering, Mystical Vision, p. 28.
37
Chabbi, Remarques, p. 70.
38
Ibid., pp. 7172.
39
Ibn al-Qaysarn, afwat al-taawwuf.
40
Bwering, Mystical Vision, p. 29.
128 chapter six
41
R. Khoury, Importance et authenticit des textes de ilyat al-awliy" wa-abaqt
al-ay" dAb Nu'aym al-Ibahn, in: StI, vol. 46 (1977), p. 77.
42
Ibid., p. 80.
the systematization of the sufi tradition 129
43
Ibid., pp. 100105.
44
Ibid., pp. 77 and 109.
45
Bwering, Mystical Vision, p. 31.
46
Khoury, Importance, p. 82.
130 chapter six
in mind that he put the typical Su precepts and maxims into the
mouths of Islams pious forebears (al-salaf ), that is, the exemplary
Muslims of the rst two centuries of Islam.
Al-Qushayrs Su Manual
47
Bulliet, Patricians, pp. 151152.
the systematization of the sufi tradition 131
48
Ibid., pp. 153159.
49
Arberry, Susm, p. 71.
50
Bwering, Mystical Vision, p. 32.
51
Baldick, Mystical Islam, pp. 6263.
132 chapter six
52
Arberry, Susm, p. 74.
the systematization of the sufi tradition 133
53
Nicholson, The Kashf, pp. ixx.
54
Ibid., pp. xixii.
55
Ibid., p. xx.
56
Ibid., p. xii.
57
Bwering, Mystical Vision, p. 33.
134 chapter six
58
Nicholson, The Kashf, p. 364.
59
Ibid., pp. 367373.
60
Ibid., p. 33.
the systematization of the sufi tradition 135
however, every reason to believe that he often mingled his own per-
sonal views with the doctrines which he attributed to the founder of
each mystical school. In discussing their tenets he tended to isolate
the concept that he saw as emblematic of a given school (e.g., sobri-
ety in the case of al-Junayds school), whilst giving short shrift to
the other elements of its Weltanschauung.61
In summarizing the role of the Kashf in the history of Su thought
R. A. Nicholson has this to say: Though Hujwr was neither a pro-
found mystic nor a precise thinker, his work on the whole forms an
admirable introduction to the study of Susm: it . . . has the merit . . .
of bringing us into immediate touch with the author himself, his
views, experiences, and adventures, while incidentally it throws light
on the manners of dervishes in various parts of the Moslem world.
His exposition of Su doctrine and practice is distinguished not only
by wide learning and rst-hand knowledge but also by the strongly
personal character impressed on everything he writes.62
Despite his aliation with the anaf school of law that was, in the
eastern lands of Islam, locked in a bitter struggle with the Sh'-
Ash'ar faction, al-Hujwrs Unveiling squares well with the anal-
ogous works produced by Sh' scholars, such as al-Sulam, Ab
Nu'aym and al-Qushayr. The only instance in which his party alle-
giance makes itself felt is when he includes the founder of anasm,
Ab anfa al-Nu'mn (d. 150/767), into his list of the pious fore-
runners of the latter-day Sus.63 This inclusion is especially signicant
if we remember that Ab anfa was deliberately ignored by Ab
Nu'aym, a staunch Sh' scholar of Ash'ar leanings and, therefore,
a natural opponent of the anaf theological party. In all other
respects, however, the apologetic message of the Su works we have
just discussed is basically the same.
One legal and theological school that has so far received little
attention is the anbals. anbal views of Susm varied widely
from one period to another and merit a separate study. Here, I shall
61
Baldick, Mystical Islam, p. 64.
62
Nicholson, The Kashf, p. xvii.
63
Ibid., pp. 9295.
136 chapter six
64
Arberry, Susm, p. 71.
65
S. Laugier de Beaureceuil, Khawdja 'Abdullah Ansari (396481 H./10061089),
mystique hanbalite, Beirut, 1965, pp. 2830.
66
Ibid., pp. 6567; cf. R. A. Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam, reprint, London,
1974, pp. 87, 133138, 145146.
67
de Beaureceuil, Khwadja, pp. 272273.
68
Ibid., pp. 286309.
the systematization of the sufi tradition 137
69
Ibid., pp. 231233.
70
Ibid., p. 255.
71
Ibid., pp. 274285.
138 chapter six
72
On him see Gramlich, Alte Vorbilde, vol. 1, pp. 447482.
73
de Beaureceuil, Khwadja, pp. 266269.
74
Ibid., pp. 270271.
75
Ibid., pp. 208221.
the systematization of the sufi tradition 139
76
Radtke, Adab al-mulk, pp. 1321.
140 chapter six
Al-Ghazls Life
Born in the city of s (near present-day Meshhed), in Khursn,
al-Ghazl and his brother Amad were left orphans at an early age.
Their education was begun in s. Then al-Ghazl went to Jurjn
and, after a further period in s, to Nshpr, where he attached
himself to the famous Ash'ar theologian al-Juwayn, nicknamed The
Imm of the Two Sanctuaries [i.e., Mecca and Medina], until the
latters death in 478/1085. Several other teachers are mentioned,
mostly obscure, the best known being Ab 'Al al-Frmadh. His
77
Ibid., 2332; cf. Arberry, The Doctrine, passim.
the systematization of the sufi tradition 141
78
Arberry, Susm, p. 79.
79
E.g., Baldick, Mystical Islam, p. 65.
142 chapter six
80
Arberry, Susm, p. 80.
the systematization of the sufi tradition 143
him, which he did not write. In other cases, the same book appears
under dierent titles, and a great deal of work has still to be done
on manuscripts before scholars know exactly what is extant and what
is not. Further, at least from the seventh/thirteenth centuries alle-
gations have been made that books have been falsely attributed to
al-Ghazl.81 The works whose authenticity has been doubted are
mostly ones expressing advanced theosophical and philosophical
views that appear to be at variance with the teaching of al-Ghazl
in the works generally accepted as authentic.82 There are diculties,
owing to the richness of his thought, in establishing conclusively the
existence of contradictions. Already in the Middle Ages, some Muslim
scholars, who were well aware of these contradictions, suggested that
al-Ghazl wrote dierently for ordinary people and for the elite, or,
in other words, that he had esoteric views which he did not wish
to divulge to everyone. If this indeed was the case, al-Ghazls cir-
cumspect attitude further complicates the problem of authenticity,
but there is no reason for thinking that, even if al-Ghazl had
dierent levels of teaching for dierent audiences, he never in the
higher levels directly contradicted what he maintained at the lower
levels.83 In the present state of scholarship the soundest methodol-
ogy is to concentrate on the main works of undoubted authenticity
and to accept other works only in so far as the views expressed there
are not incompatible with those in the former.84
As mentioned, a year or two before his death al-Ghazl wrote
his famous Deliverance from Error (al-Munqidh min al-all ), which
provides an account of the development of his religious opinions and
of his arduous quest for truth. Although its biographical value is
sometimes called in question by Western scholars, it is often described
as his autobiography. Most of the details about al-Ghazls life given
above are derived from the Munqidh. This book is of particular rel-
evance to our present purpose, since it describes how, upon exam-
ining several inuential systems of thought available in his epoch
(i.e., speculative theology, the messianic doctrines of Ism'lism and
81
M. Watt, A Forgery in al-Ghazls Mishkt?, in: JRAS, vol. 54 (1949), pp.
522; idem, The Authenticity of the Works Attributed to al-Ghazl, in: JRAS,
vol. 57 (1952), pp. 2445.
82
H. Landolt, Ghazl and Religionswissenschaft, in: Asiatische Studien, vol.
55/1 (1991), pp. 1972.
83
G. F. Hourani, The Chronology of Ghazls Writings, in: JAOS, vol. 79
(1959), pp. 22533.
84
M. Watt, The study of al-Ghazl, in: Oriens, vols. 1314 (1961), pp. 12131.
144 chapter six
85
Idem, Faith and Practice of al-Ghazl, London, 1953.
the systematization of the sufi tradition 145
86
Arberry, Susm, pp. 8081.
87
Ibid., pp. 8182.
88
Landolt, Ghazls Religionswissenschaft, p. 37.
89
Ibid., passim.
the systematization of the sufi tradition 147
90
Ibid., p. 27.
91
Ibid., p. 46.
92
Ibid., pp. 2426.
93
Ibid., p. 54; cf. Hodgson, Venture, vol. 2, p. 314; P. Heath, Allegory and Philosophy
in Avicenna (Ibn Sina), Philadelphia, 1992, passim.
148 chapter six
94
Arberry, Susm, p. 83.
the systematization of the sufi tradition 149
1
The observations that follow are based on the unpublished paper An Inquiry
into the Poetics of Susm, which was presented in my class on Islamic Mysticism
in the fall of 1998 by John Hope, a graduate student at the Department of Near
Eastern Studies, The University of Michigan. I am grateful to John Hope for allow-
ing me to quote his work.
sufism as literature and metaphysics 151
'Ar
2
Hodgson, The Venture, vol. 2, p. 305.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid.
sufism as literature and metaphysics 153
nma) and The Heart of the Essence ( Jawhar al-dht). To the third
belongs The Arena of Marvels (Mahar al-'aj"ib) and The Language
of the Unseen (Lisn al-ghayb). There is, in addition, a fourth group
of works which includes a number of works attributed to 'Ar.
Their authorship is generally seen as doubtful. The same goes for
some works in the third group. The books in the rst group are
generally modeled on the following pattern: there is a clear, well-
constructed main motif, which is interspersed with numerous short
subsidiary tales. Despite their auxiliary character, such tales are told
with great skill and deal with a great variety of subjects. They some-
times constitute the main charm of the works in this group. In the
second group, the number of such secondary tales is much smaller.
Inward looking and visionary by character, they rarely deal with the
external world. Here a few principal ideas are pursued with inten-
sity and great emotion. To drive his point home 'Ar often repeats
them over and over. Among such recurring ideas and themes are:
the complete annihilation of man in God ( fan") that sometimes leads
to a physical death; the underlying unity of all being (there is noth-
ing other than God, and all things are of one substance); the knowl-
edge of ones self as the key to the vital mysteries of God and of
the Universe. In the stories that constitute the second group, God
often manifests himself in the guise of various human individuals, but
is nevertheless recognized by some perceptive observers. The nar-
rative of such symbolic tales is usually poorly structured and abounds
in tiresome repetitions. Frequently one is at a loss as to who is speak-
ing or who is being addressed. Here 'Ar makes extensive, and at
times excessive, use of anaphora: on occasion a hundred consecu-
tive lines begin with the same phrase. Some scholars regard the works
of this group as spurious and place them in the third or even in the
fourth group. Their authorship is tentatively attributed to his name-
sake, a man of Sh' propensities who lived at s (near present day
Meshhed, Iran) in the ninth/fteenth century. In the absence of a
conclusive evidence, most scholars continue to view 'Ar as the
author of the works in the second group, especially since the use of
anaphora and many of the themes that dominate the second group
are similar to, or identical with, those in the rst one. The works
in the second group are full of allusions to Su gnosis, which the au-
thor presents as superior to all other types of cognition. Of the Su
mystics of the previous centuries 'Ar was particularly fascinated
by al-allj, who gures prominently in many of his mystical works.
154 chapter seven
she advises him to seek the answer in his own self (soul). Only after
having traversed the forty stages of the path, does the wayfarer dis-
cover his Lord in the sea of his own soul. The theme of the Mubat-
nma is typical of 'Ars Weltanschauung: deliverance from spiritual
anguish and doubt is to be found in embarking on the mystical path
under the guidance of an experienced master. In the Book of God,
'Ar depicts a king who asks his six sons to designate the object
of their aspirations, but is disappointed when he learns that all of
them are aspiring after material goals to the detriment of their spir-
itual needs. In the process, the king explains the esoteric meaning
of each sons longing: the fairy princess desired by the rst son sym-
bolizes his quest for his puried soul; the magic ring of Solomon,
which was requested by the second son, stands for his desire to achieve
peace with his soul, etc. In general outlines, the Ilh-nma carries
essentially the same message as Maniq al-ayr: the answer to the
seekers quest lies in the knowledge of his own self.
The Book of the Mysteries (Asrr-nma) lacks any visible struc-
ture. It presents loosely strung reections on the worlds transience,
vanity, and on the depravity of human nature. One theme that
stands out is the gnostic notion that the human soul is entangled in
the trappings and allures of the material world, which distract it
from its real objective. According to a popular legend, 'Ar pre-
sented a copy of this book to the young Jall al-Dn Rm, who
further elaborated it in his Poem of Inner Meanings (Mathnaw-i
ma'naw ).
The rest of 'Ars authentic legacy consists of moralistic and
didactic treatises, such as the Book of Spiritual Advice (Pand-nma),
which instructs the reader as to how best to cope with the world, and
of a number of philosophical parables along the lines of the Ushtur-
nma. The latter portrays God as a puppet-master, who deliberately
smashes the gures he has so carefully crafted and tears the curtain
down from his stage. When a wise man asks him about the mean-
ing of such outrageous actions, God sends the inquirer on a futile
journey beyond the seven curtains. Having witnessed macabre and
meaningless events, the seeker leaves the scene empty-handed and
frustrated. The story contains numerous allusions to the experiences
and life-stories of the early mystics, especially to the tragic fate of
al-allj, whose voluntary martyrdom is presented as the culmina-
tion of spiritual quest.
Our survey of 'Ars work would be incomplete without mentioning
156 chapter seven
Rm
The family of Jall al-Dn Rm, whom his followers usually call
Our Master (mawln), migrated from Balkh near the Oxus river
to Anatolia (Konya) on the eve of the Mongol invasions. His father
was a popular Su preacher in Balkh, who died when Rm was
still a young boy. His fathers students and friends made sure that
he received a good education.7 Rms rst shaykh, Sayyid Burhn
al-Dn Muaqqiq was an old pupil of his father, who had come to
Konya to visit his former master only to nd that he was no loner
alive. He took Jall al-Dn under his wing and educated him in the
fundamentals of the Muslim Law and the Su path. When Burhn
al-Dn died nine years later, Jall al-Dn did not aliate himself
with another master and remained on his own for ve years. A turn-
ing point in his whole life was the arrival in Konya in 642/1244 of
the wandering dervish Shams al-Dn Muammad Tabrz (Shams-i
Tabrz), a wildly unpredictable man who deed all conventions and
preached the self-suciency of each individual in his search for the
divine.8 However, in the eyes of Konyas religious establishment,
Shams-i Tabrz was a disreputable drifter with neither family nor
permanent home. His restless wandering life won him the nickname
of the ier ( paranda). During their rst meeting, Shams-i Tabrz
5
See Arberry, Muslim Saints.
6
Hodgson, The Venture, vol. 2, p. 305.
7
Ibid., p. 245.
8
Ibid.
sufism as literature and metaphysics 157
9
Ibid.
158 chapter seven
Rms Weltanschauung
It is not easy to summarize systematically the main lines of Rms
thought. He saw himself as neither a philosopher nor a poet in the
conventional meaning of these words. Rather, he presented himself
as a passionate lover of God, who was free from societal conven-
tions and religious stereotypes. Hence his propensity to express his
feelings in an unorthodox, volcanic way, thus creating a poetic style
that is unique in the entire Persian literature. This is not to say that
his work had no antecedents: he seems to have been inuenced by
the religious and mystical ideas of al-Ghazl, by the famous Su
poet San" (d. ca. 525/1131) and by 'Ar. He drew heavily on
the topoi of the Su tradition which stretched back to the heroes of
early Susm.
On the metaphysical plane, Rms God presents himself as an
absolutely transcendent entity that is not subject to human notions
of Good and Evil. He is beyond Nothingness and Being; the nature
of his relations with the material world is an inscrutable mystery that
eludes mere mortals. In this respect, Rm cannot be seen as a fol-
lower of the doctrine of the oneness of being, understood as pan-
theism. On the issue of causality, Rm embraced the Ash'ar idea
of the discontinuity of time and of creative process. For him, as for
the Ash'ars, the phenomenal world presents itself as a succession of
disparate atoms of time and disconnected individual accidents which
160 chapter seven
10
J. Renard, All the Kings Falcons, Albany, N.Y., 1994.
sufism as literature and metaphysics 161
God and his servant is subtle. For him, the process of the mystical
annihilation of man in the divine Essence ( fan") is never complete.
As the ame of a candle continues to exist despite being outshined
by the radiance of the sun, so does a mystical man retain his iden-
tity despite the overpowering presence of his Lord. In this state he
can claim to be both human and divine, although in some instances
he is tempted to declare his complete identity with the Divine Essence.
The style of Rms poetic works is determined by the fact that
the poet used to sing them in the process of composition on the
assumption that they are likely to be sung by his followers. According
to a famous legend, Rm improvised his odes while gently dancing
around a pillar in his khnaq. In a similar vein, Rms rst encounter
with his favorite disciple, the goldsmith al al-Dn Zarkb, occurred
when he began to move to the rhythm of al al-Dns hammer,
while passing by the latters shop. His sense of rhythm was not always
matched by his attention to the conventions of Persian metrics, which
he often ignores. In the Mathnaw, the conventional narrative ow
of poetry is occasionally interrupted by a sudden poetic or stylistic
deviation that may have been produced by a mystic rapture expe-
rienced by the author. Due to the intensely personal and ecstatic
features of his poetry, it found practically no successful imitators in
later Persian poetry. In Rm we nd the paragon and the ultimate
manifestation of Su artistic creativity, which combines organically
mystical experience with poetic inspiration.
Jm
11
N. Heer (ed.), The Precious Pearl: Al-Jamis al-Durrah al-Fakhirah, Albany, N.Y.,
1979, p. 1.
162 chapter seven
12
Ibid., p. 2.
sufism as literature and metaphysics 163
Susm titled Nafat al-uns (The Breath of Divine Intimacy) that draws
on 'Ars Tadhkirat al-awliy" and the works of earlier Su biographers.
Jms Arabic treatises on various dicult issues of Su philoso-
phy, Law"i (Flashes of Light) and al-Durra al-fkhira (The Precious
Pearl), are masterpieces of lucidity and concision.13 In the al-Durra,
Jm discusses the respective positions of the speculative theologians,
the Sus and the philosophers on eleven major issues of the Islamic
creed, including the nature of Gods existence, Gods knowledge and
attributes, and the origin of the universe in space and time.14 In the
Law"i, Jm summarizes, in a nutshell, the intellectual development
of Islamic mysticism from its inception up to his own time. He also
wrote commentaries on the Qur"n, on the mystical poetry of Ibn
al-Fri and on Ibn 'Arabs Fu al-ikam. Jms indebtedness to
the school of Ibn 'Arab and his philosophically minded followers is
to the fore in his Epistle on Existence (Risla f l-wujd ). Here he
identies God with an absolute being that is not conditioned by any-
thing. He then proceeds to describe this absolute being as the only
existent reality outside our minds. In this scheme, the universe is
presented as a mere manifestation or particularization of the absolute
being, which in and of itself has no independent reality. According
to Jm, this perception of reality is derived from mystical insight or
unveiling (kashf ) and, in particular, from the mystical experience
of fan", or annihilation, in which the entire universe, and the Sus
own individuality, disappears, and only God remains as the sole true
existent reality.15
As we can see, Jms work recapitulates the major themes that
were developed by the mystical tradition in the preceding centuries.
His writings intricately mingle mystical poetry with didactic, bio-
graphical and metaphysical narratives, providing a helpful summa-
tion of various stands within contemporary Susm.
13
Hodgson, The Venture, vol. 2, p. 492.
14
The Precious Pearl, pp. 67.
15
N. Heer, Al-Jamis Treatise on Existence, in: Islamic Philosophical Theology. Ed.
by P. Morewedge, Albany, N.Y., 1979, p. 223.
164 chapter seven
16
On him see R. Austin, Sus of Andalusia, reprint, Gloucestershire, 1971, index.
17
O. Yahia, Histoire et classication doeuvre dIbn 'Arabi, Damascus, 1964.
sufism as literature and metaphysics 165
18
For the dissemination of Ibn 'Arabs ideas in eastern Islamdom see H. Corbin,
Creative Imagination in the Susm of Ibn 'Arabi, Princeton, 1969, pp. 6971 and 224;
W. Chittick, Ibn 'Arab and His School, in: Islamic Spirituality: Manifestations. Ed.
by S. H. Nasr, New York, 1991, pp. 4979; idem. Rm and wadat al-wujd, in:
Poetry and Mysticism in Islam: The heritage of Rumi. Ed. by A. Banani, R. Hovannisian,
et al., Cambridge, 1994, pp. 7779.
19
For details see A. Knysh, Ibn 'Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition: The making of
a polemical image in medieval Islam, Albany, N.Y., 1998.
166 chapter seven
20
O. Yahia, Histoire, vol. 1, pp. 3750.
21
Ibid., passim.
22
Hodgson, The Venture, vol. 2, p. 224.
sufism as literature and metaphysics 167
23
Ibid., pp. 222227.
24
J. W. Morris, How to Study the Futuhat, in: Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi: A com-
memorative volume. Ed. by S. Hirtenstein and M. Tiernan, Brisbane, 1993, pp. 7389.
25
For the so-called mythic-visional style of writing, which was used by many
medieval Muslim thinkers and poets, see Hodgson, The Venture, vol. 2, pp. 225227
and 311315.
168 chapter seven
26
Ibid., p. 315.
27
Morris, How to Study the Futuhat, 73.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1
Radtke, Theologen, pp. 559563.
170 chapter eight
were but foreign implants grafted onto the pristine body of the clas-
sical Su tradition. It seems more productive to treat them as a nat-
ural development of certain tendencies inherent in the Islamic religion
from the outset, which in turn reected the growing sophistication
of later Susm. Already in the classical Su tradition God was seen
as the only real agent in this world, to whose commands and actions
man must submit willingly and unconditionally. In the post-classical
period of Susms history, which began in the fth-sixth/eleventh-
twelfth centuries, this perception of God evolved into a vision of
God as not just the only agent but also the only reality that exists.
This conception, which may somewhat loosely be termed monistic,
was rebued by the great anbal scholar Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/
1328), who condemned its Su adherents as out-and-out heretics.
Ibn Taymiyya and those ulema who came in his wake laid the foun-
dations of the anti-monistic polemical literature which was to play an
important role in the Islamic intellectual discourse from the eighth/
fourteenth century until today.2
In addition to non-Islamic philosophical systems, later Susm inte-
grated and institutionalized a number of special spiritual exercises
and meditation techniques that have become its distinctive hallmarks.
They included such practices as spiritual retreat (khalwa), the remem-
brance of God (dhikr ) and the mystical concerts (sam' ) during which
formulas of dhikr were performed to the accompaniment of various
musical instruments. Su theorists saw these rituals as a means to
intensify relations between the mystic and his divine Master and to
release the spiritual energies that the mystic accumulated in the
process of direct contemplation of mysteries or even of God him-
self. It is with this end in mind that Su masters allowed music to
be played and love poetry to be recited during the sam' gatherings.
In the process, the mystics encounter with his divine Beloved acquired
a recognizable ritual and artistic expression that set Sus aside from
the commonality of the believers. During such gatherings, mystics
often fell into a state of ecstasy (wajd ) that could force them to per-
form a spontaneous dance or to make frantic rhythmic gestures to
the accompaniment of music. As time went on, these practices became
more and more rigidly ritualized. On the psychological level, they
allowed the mystic to enter changed states of consciousness during
2
See A. Knysh, Ibn 'Arab in the Later Islamic Tradition: The making of a polemical
image in medieval Islam, Albany, New York, 1998.
unity and diversity in sufism 171
3
Arberry, Susm, p. 106.
172 chapter eight
4
Baldick, Mystical Islam, p. 74.
176 chapter eight
5
Trimingham, The Su Orders in Islam, 2d edition, Oxford, 1998, pp. 182193
and Index under dhikr.
unity and diversity in sufism 177
6
Ibid., pp. 181185.
178 chapter eight
7
Amad Zarrq, Qaw'id al-taawwuf. Ed. by Muammad Zuhr Najjr, 2d edi-
tion, Cairo, 1976, p. 35.
8
Hodgson, Venture, vol. 2, p. 230.
9
Ibid., p. 208.
10
Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, p. 247.
180 chapter eight
11
Hodgson, Venture, vol. 2, p. 208.
unity and diversity in sufism 181
12
Ibid., p. 209.
13
Arberry, Susm, p. 85.
182 chapter eight
14
Bwering, Mystical Vision, pp. 9297.
15
Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, p. 247.
unity and diversity in sufism 183
16
Trimingham, Su Orders, pp. 4041.
17
'Abd al-Kadir al-Djilani, personnage historique, in: StI, vol. 38 (1973), pp.
65106.
18
A. Demeerseman, Nouveau regard sur la voie spirituelle d'Abd al-Qdir al-Jln et
sa tradition, Paris, 1988, pp. 1317.
19
Ibid., pp. 1819.
20
Ibid., pp. 1934.
184 chapter eight
21
Ibid., pp. 4052.
22
Ibid., pp. 4546.
unity and diversity in sufism 185
23
A. Le Chatelier, Confrries Musulmanes du Hdjaz, Paris, 1887, p. 35.
24
L. Rinn, Marabouts et Khouan, Algiers, 1884, pp. 183185.
186 chapter eight
25
W. Chittick, The Self-Disclosure of God, Albany, NY, 1998, p. 376.
26
E. de Neveu, Les Khouan: Ordres religieux chez les Musulmans dAlgrie, Paris, 1845,
p. 30.
unity and diversity in sufism 187
their existence. The men on the other hand chiey go to the khalwa
when they are ill. Some Sunn scholars, especially Ibn Taymiyya
and his followers in Syria and Egypt, attacked such practices. The
Qdiriyya consists of loosely structured communities that dier from
other orders mainly in ritual, but again this varies widely from one
locality to another within the same Qdir movement. It is, there-
fore, hardly appropriate to speak of a unied Qdir order. Perhaps
the only feature such disparate regional communities share in com-
mon is their allegiance to the saintly founder. Furthermore, though
the founder was a anbal scholar, membership is by no means
conned to that school, and the order is theoretically both tolerant
and charitable.
Since historical and geographical works rarely distinguish between
the dierent Su uruq in their accounts of religious buildings, little
can be said with certainty of the date at which the rst Qdir lodge
(zwiyya or khnaq) was established in any country save Iraq. The
teachings of the order is said to have been introduced into Fez by
the posterity of two of 'Abd al-Qdirs sons, Ibrhm (d. 592/1196 in
Wsi, Lower Iraq) and 'Abd al-'Azz (who died in Jiyl, a village
of Sinjr, Upper Iraq). Their descendants reportedly had migrated
to Spain and shortly before the fall of Granada (897/1492) ed to
Morocco, where they still reside. The khalwa of 'Abd al-Qdir in
Fez is mentioned as early as 1104/16923.
The order was introduced into Asia Minor and Istanbul by Ism'l
Rm, founder of the khnaq known as the Qdirikhnah at the
opkhne. This personage (d. 1041/1631), who is called P r thn,
Second Master, is said to have founded some forty lodges (tekiya
or tekke) in these regions. The Yemeni scholar li b. Mahd al-
Maqbal mentioned a Qdir lodge (rib) in Mecca27 about 1180/
1767. The assertion that a branch was established there during the
lifetime of 'Abd al-Qdir28 is not improbable, since Mecca has a natu-
ral attraction for the Sus.
The Qdiriyya order is mentioned as one that is highly respected
but is not included among those recognized in India. It spread into
the Subcontinent from Uch, northeast of Multn, in the late ninth/
fteenth centuries; from there it was carried by the Qdir missionaries
27
Al-'lam al-shmikh, Cairo, 1328 A.H., p. 381.
28
Le Chatelier, Confrries, p. 44.
188 chapter eight
29
Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, p. 354.
30
Depont and Coppolani, Confrries, pp. 30118.
31
Rinn, Marabouts, p. 179.
32
Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, p. 247.
33
F. de Jong, uruq and uruq-linked Institutions in XIXth Century Egypt, Leiden, 1978.
unity and diversity in sufism 189
34
The Dervishes of Turkey, London, 1990, pp. 119121.
35
E. Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of Modern Egyptians, London,
1978, p. 245.
36
Rinn, Marabouts, p. 177.
190 chapter eight
orders litany (izb), and the Jlla, who recite the dhikr to the accom-
paniment of drums and tambourines; and again between the Jlla
of the country, who use slightly dierent musical instruments. A per-
formance executed with these instruments sometimes leads to ecstasy.
The collective worship of the Jlla of the country contains neither
the izb nor the dhikr instituted by the founder of the brotherhood,
but a plain dhikr of improvised words chanted to the ceremonial
rhythm of the tambourines without bells (bandir). These improvisa-
tions always terminate with the words Thus spoke Mawly 'Abd
al-Qdir or O Mawly 'Abd al-Qdir.
Various collections of rituals, which are ascribed to 'Abd al-Qdir,
have been published in Egypt, Turkey and India. In the Qdir
manual The Divine Outpourings (al-Fuyt al-rabbniyya), the murd
who is about to enter upon khalwa (retreat) is advised to fast in the
day and keep vigil at night. The khalwa lasts forty days. If, during
the vigil, a gure reveals itself to him saying I am God, he should
say Nay rather thou art in God, and if it be for probation, it will
vanish; but if it remain, then it will be a genuine revelation (tajall ).
Reduction of food during the forty days should be gradual till for
the last three days fasting is complete. At the end, the murd returns
by degrees to his former diet.
The Jlla of Tangier in Algeria, who make vows to 'Abd al-Qdir
in the hopes of securing his assistance in a dicult undertaking or
in distress, are in the habit of depositing in the zwiyya white cocks,
which are called muarrar.37 They do not kill them, but leave them
free to rove about the zwiyya, where however they do not long sur-
vive, since the descendants of the Prophet who live hard by take
them for their food. The head (muqaddam) of this zwiyya conducts
the ceremonies at which the Qur"n is repeated without 'Abd al-
Qdirs litany (izb) being pronounced, and where some ritual dances
are performed. Circumcisions are made at the zwiyya on the rst
day of the Prophets birthday (mawlid ). A nightly meeting called layla
is held on the eve of this day, at which the izb of 'Abd al-Qdir
is recited. In some localities of the Maghrib, all the potters belong
to the Jlla, among whom the richer members of the community
are to be found.
The rst time that the Qdirs appear to have played an active
political part was during the French conquest of Algeria in the 1830s,
37
A reference to Qur"n 3:35.
unity and diversity in sufism 191
when the chief of the local Qdiriyya, Muy l-Dn, having been
oered the leadership in the war against the indel, permitted his
son 'Abd al-Qdir to accept it. A born leader of men, 'Abd al-Qdir
was able to utilize the mobilizational resources and the shaykh-murd
discipline of his brotherhood to establish his authority over many
regions of Algeria. When his power was threatened by the French,
he made astute use of his rank as the muqaddam of his order to win
fresh recruits and consolidate his authority over the Algerian coun-
tryside. After his fall and subsequent exile to France in 1847, the
followers of the African Qdiriyya seem to have lost their militancy.
From that time onward they often lent their support to the French
colonial government of Algeria. During a local insurrection in Aurs
in 1879, the shaykh of the Qdiriyya of Men'a, S Muammad b.
'Abbs, displayed unimpeachable loyalty. The same branch of the
order helped the French to extend their inuence to the Sahara at
Wrgla and to El-Wad. Their leader S Muammad b. ayyib, fell
on the French side at the battle of Charouin on March 2, 1901.38
General Observations
The various branches of the Qdiriyya present a typical example of
the evolution of Susm in the later periods. It was no longer sim-
ply the individual piety of a few religious virtuosi, but an elaborate
lore and custom based on the relation of disciple and master that
eventually acquired its own organization, the arqa Su order. From
that time on the arqa has existed side by side with the mosques
and madrasas of the regular ulema scholars.39 The social potential-
ities of organized Susm were fully realized with the emergence of
the Su cloisters and lodges, which gradually became the impor-
tant foci of social cohesion and popular religiosity. As 'Abd al-Qdirs
example clearly demonstrates, the great Su preachers and vision-
aries enjoyed enormous popular respect. Living in poverty . . . and
scorning the niceties of courtly fashion and the competition for
nancial and social advantage of the urban tradesmen . . ., they
fullled the long-standing Irano-Semitic dream of a pure life over
against the injustice that seemed built into city life . . .40 The moral
38
I. Hamid, Les Musulmans Franais du Nord de lAfrique, Paris 1906, p. 276.
39
Hodgson, Venture, vol. 2, p. 204.
40
Ibid., p. 207.
192 chapter eight
respect which Sus and their leaders enjoyed among the masses grad-
ually transformed into a wide popular belief in their miraculous pow-
ers and in their ability to intercede before God on behalf of the
ordinary believers. Mixed with the pre-Islamic religious and cultural
substrata of the areas where Susm was by now rmly implanted,
such popular beliefs produced the peculiar combinations that have
just been described. From then on, Su institutions were increasingly
catering to the needs of popular religiosity with its insatiable craving
for the miraculous and the extraordinary. Endowed by the popular
imagination with supernatural therapeutic and intercessory powers
Su shaykhs came to provide the much needed spiritual comfort
and ministry to the populations in the rural hinterland as well as in
cities. Their role was especially vital at the time of the decline or
outright collapse of the central authorities in the aftermath of vari-
ous social cataclysms or natural disasters. In accounting for the new
social role of Susm one Western scholar wrote:
The Su ties at once deepened the local moral resources, and tied
them in a system of brotherhoods in some ways as universal as the
old caliphal bureaucracy had been, which had disappeared. . . . Thus
Susm supplemented the Shar'ah as a principle of unity and social
order, oering the Muslims the sense of spiritual unity which came to
be stronger than that provided by the remnant of the caliphate. They
developed . . . a picture of the world which united the whole Dr al-
Islm [i.e., the Abode of IslamA.K.] . . . under a comprehensive hier-
archy of pirs . . . The individual khniqhs and saints tombs to which
the faithful could come for spiritual guidance and consolation from
God-dedicated men were part of an inclusive holy ordernot merely
the order of a given arqah, but that of Gods chosen men through-
out the world.41
It is against the background of this new social and ministerial role
of later Susm that we should view the activities of the saintly indi-
viduals and the institutions that they founded.
41
Ibid., p. 221.
unity and diversity in sufism 193
42
I. Netton, The Breath of Felicity: Adab, Awl, Maqmt and Ab Najb al-
Suhraward, in: L. Lewisohn (ed.), Classical Persian Susm from Its Origins to Rumi,
London and New York, 1993, p. 457.
43
Baldick, Mystical Islam, p. 66.
44
Netton, The Breath, p. 457, apud al-Subk, abaqt al-sh'iyya, Cairo,
19051906, vol. 4, p. 256.
45
Netton, ibid.
194 chapter eight
46
M. Milson, A Su Rule for Novices, Cambridge, Mass., 1975.
47
Ibid., p. 16.
48
Netton, The Breath, p. 460; cf. Milson, A Su Rule.
49
Netton, The Breath, p. 461.
unity and diversity in sufism 195
50
Baldick, Mystical Islam, p. 72.
51
Ibid., Netton, The Breath, p. 466.
52
Milson, A Su Rule, pp. 19, 53 and 66.
53
Ibid., p. 20.
196 chapter eight
54
H. Algar (trans.), The Path of Gods Bondsmen from Origin to Return: A Su com-
pendium by Najm al-Dn Rz, Delmar, New York, 1982.
unity and diversity in sufism 197
55
C. Addas, The Quest for Red Sulphur, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 240241; cf.
A. Knysh, Ibn 'Arab in the Later Islamic Tradition: The making of a polemical image in me-
dieval Islam, Albany, New York, 1998, p. 134 and passim.
56
Hodgson, Venture, vol. 2, p. 281.
57
Ibid., p. 282.
198 chapter eight
58
Ibid., p. 283.
59
Ibid., p. 282.
unity and diversity in sufism 199
60
Hodgson, The Venture, vol. 2, p. 225.
202 chapter eight
61
Landolt, Religionswissenschaft, passim.
unity and diversity in sufism 203
The caliph had a lodge built for him and designated him as a patron
of the futuwwa clubs. Upon his death, al-Suhraward was succeeded
by his son 'Imd al-Dn Muammad Suhraward (d. 655/1257), who
presided over the Su lodge al-Ma"mniyya. Upon completion of
their Su education his numerous disciples returned to their home-
lands or settled in new areas, where they propagated the teachings
of the Suhrawardyya order as expounded in the 'Awrif al-ma'rif.
This book thus can be rightfully regarded as the teaching manual
of the order.
In the Indian Subcontinent, the Suhrawardiyya was one of the four
major orders, besides the Chishtiyya, the Qdiriyya and the Naqsh-
bandiyya. It gained a foothold there at the beginning of the Dehli
Sulnate (sixth/thirteenth century) thanks to the eorts of three dis-
ciples of Shihb al-Dn al-Suhraward. Each of them later founded
a regional branch: mid al-Dn Nagawr (d. 673/1274) in the area
of Dehli, Ab l-Qsim Jall al-Dn Tabrz (d. 6412/1244) in
Bangala, and Bah" al-Dn Zakariyy" Multn (d. 661/1262) in
Multn. Bah" al-Dn, who joined Shihb al-Dn in Baghdad after
spending some time at Bukhr, proved to be the most successful
propagator of the orders teachings. Under his successors his resi-
dence in Multn became the orders principal center in India. Shihb
al-Dn al-Suhrawards contemporary and disciple, Mu'n al-Dn
Chisht of Sstn (Iran), also disseminated the orders doctrine in
India. Having settled at Ajmer, he laid the foundations of the pop-
ular Chishtiyya order whose members used the 'Awrif as their man-
ual of instruction. The Shariyya order, which had strong links to
the Suhrawardiyya, was introduced to India at the end of the
ninth/fteenth century.
Of Bah" al-Dns disciples mention should be made of Sayyid
Jall Bukhr (d. 690/1291) who migrated from Bukhr to Uch,
where he founded the Jall branch of the order. The famous Sh'
dervish order of the Khksr seems to be a Persian oshoot of this
Jall suborder. Bah" al-Dns most famous disciple was the Su and
poet Fakhr al-Dn Ibrhm 'Irq, a native of Hamadn in Persia, who
studied in Multn with Bah" al-Dn and later served as one of his
lieutenants (khalfa). Since the appointment of adr al-Dn Muammad
'rif (d. 684/1286) as his fathers successor at the head of the order,
its Indian leadership has adhered to hereditary principle. Thus, despite
the fact that adr al-Dn had many illustrious disciples, including
the great Su scholar Amr usayn usayn (d. after 720/1320),
unity and diversity in sufism 205
upon his death the headship of the order devolved upon his son
Rukn al-Dn Ab l-Fat (d. 735/1335). The latter, in turn, was suc-
ceeded by either his nephew or, according to the Maghrib traveller
Ibn Baa, his grandson Shaykh Hd. Following Hds execution
on the orders of the sultan of Delhi, who suspected the shaykh of
embezzlement, the fortunes of Bah" al-Dns imposing khnaq in
Multn suered a decline which eventually led to its dissipation. The
orders other regional branches, however, continued to ourish in
Uch, Gujarat, the Punjab, Kashmr and at Dehli.
In Uch, Jall al-Dn Bukhr, also known as Makhdm-i Jah-
niyn, succeeded in infusing the arqa with new life. In addition
to his aliation with the Suhrawardiyya, Makhdm was also ini-
tiated, by Chirgh-i Dihl, into the Chishtiyya order. Although Bah"
al-Dn prohibited his disciples from joining any other order, from
the eighth/fourteenth century on many Indian Sus were members
of both the Chishtiyya and the Suhrawardiyya orders. The reli-
gious policy of a given branch of the Suhrawardiyya order was usu-
ally determined by the personal religious views of its leader. Thus
Makhdm, who was famous for his puritanism, opposed the inuence
of Hindu customs on his fellow Muslims; he also disapproved of
invoking God in Hindi. His brother and successor adr al-Dn Raju
(d. after 800/1400) earned the name of slayer [of Hindus] (qattl )
on account of his unrelenting hostility toward Hinduism.
Whereas various disciples and descendants of the Makhdm fam-
ily established themselves in the provincial kingdoms of Kalpi and
also in Gujarat, the Suhrawardiyya branch in Dehli was established
by Sam" al-Dn (d. 9012/1496), a follower of Raju Qattl. Unlike
most of the leaders of the Suhrawardiyya who sought to steer clear
of mystical metaphysics, Sam" al-Dn was noted as an exponent of
the tradition of wadat al-wujd, personied by the Su gnostic Ibn
'Arab and his numerous followers in the eastern parts of the Muslim
world. The leading gure among Sam" al-Dns disciples was mid
b. Jaml Dihlaw (d. 942/1536), a widely known poet and traveller.
The Indian Suhrawardiyya had the greatest impact, however, in
Kashmr. This was partly due to the support they received from
migrant Sus of the Kubrawiyya order and from the local tempo-
ral rulers. Rinchana, the king of Kashmr and former Buddhist chief
from Ladakh, who embraced Islam in the eighth/fourteenth century,
is said to have been converted by Sayyid Sharaf al-Dn who was a
disciple of Shihb al-Dn al-Suhrawards emissary (khalfa) in Turkestan.
206 chapter eight
62
A. Rizvi, A History of Susm in India, New Delhi, 1968, vol. 2, p. 398.
unity and diversity in sufism 207
cations of the dhikr exercises along the lines of Yogic mysticism, which
were practiced by the members of the Chishtiyya, were absent from
the Suhraward rituals. The practice of prostration before the shaykh
(zamn-bs), which was common among the Chishtiyya, was rejected
by the leaders of the Suhrawardiyya.
With regard to the sam' concerts, the Suhrawardiyya shows little
appreciation of poetry or music. Already the founder, Shihb al-
Dn al-Suhraward, had taken a reserved stance toward the use of
music and dancing during Su gatherings. Shihb al-Dn also criti-
cised Awad al-Dn Kirmn for his contemplation of beauty in sen-
sible objects, especially in the unbearded youth, which was often
practiced during sam' assemblies.63 Nevertheless the poet 'Irq, who
studied with Bah" al-Dn, adopted the latters favorable attitude
toward this practice, known as shhid-bz. Many later Suhraward
leaders also viewed sam' to be licit, although they restricted it to
the orders spiritual elite. These conicting approaches to sam' among
the orders leadership have persisted up to the present day.
While in recent times the Suhrawardiyya has largely disappeared
from such Arab countries as Syria, it continues to enjoy a modest
following in Iraq. The leaders of the contemporary Suhrawardiyya
in that country traditionally belong to the li al-Khab family.
Some of them served as professors at the religious college named
after Shihb al-Dn Suhraward or as public preachers at the mosque
attached to it. At one point, one Suhraward shaykh is said to have
served as the ocial prayer-leader (imm) of the Iraqi army.
63
H. Ritter, Das Meer der Seele, Leiden, 1955, pp. 473476.
208 chapter eight
64
Trimingham, Su Orders, p. 45.
unity and diversity in sufism 209
locals came to credit him with numerous miracles and his prayers
were thought to be granted by God. His popularity irritated the
Mlik ulema of Qayrawn who hastened to accuse him of harbor-
ing messianic tendencies (on account of his descent from 'Al and
Fima) and of claming to be the pole of his age. Despite the sup-
port of the afid sultan Ab Zakariyy", al-Shdhil nally decided
to leave Ifrqiya with a departing pilgrimage caravan. Upon arriv-
ing in Egypt, he settled in Alexandria in 642/1244 or perhaps only
as late as 650/1252. His preaching attracted to him not only the
populace but some established scholars as well. Numerous pupils
ocked to his lodge in Alexandria from far and wide to attend his
lectures and partake of his blessing.65 A meticulous and uncompro-
mising observer of the duties of Islam, al-Shdhil made the point
of performing a pilgrimage to Mecca as often as he could. It was
on one such journey that he died at al-umaythira, a village in the
Upper Egyptian desert on the Red Sea coast.
Al-Shdhil left behind no doctrinal writings, except for a few let-
ters to his followers,66 litanies and prayers. The core of his teach-
ings was transmitted and systematized by his pupils in the form of
collections of sayings, witticisms and edifying and miraculous anec-
dotes. They demonstrate his indebtedness to the precepts of classi-
cal Susm as well as his solicitude for the spiritual and material
needs of his disciples. The pivot of his teaching is the strictest pos-
sible observance of the of Shar'a law which he prescribes equally
to the Sus and to the ordinary believers. By fullling the require-
ments of the Divine Law the Muslim, in the words of al-Shdhil,
puries the mirror of his soul and becomes t to undertake a mys-
tical journey to his Lord.67 No person who is remiss in implement-
ing the rulings of the Shar'a can be seen as a Su ( faqr). When
faced with mystical experiences, the Su should exercise humility and
caution. If, says al-Shdhil, your mystical unveiling (kashf ) diverges
from the Qur"n and the Sunna, hold fast to them and take no
notice of your unveiling; tell yourself that the truth of the Qur"n
and the Sunna is guaranteed by God Most High, which is not the
case with unveiling, inspiration and mystical perceptions.
65
Ibid., p. 48.
66
Ibid., pp. 4849.
67
This idea was not original to al-Shdhil; we nd it in the works of earlier
Sus, including al-Ghazl.
210 chapter eight
at the same time keeping union with Him present in the secret re-
cesses of your heart.
Al-Shdhil set great store by the prayers (ad'iy) and litanies (azb)
the texts of which he passed on to his disciples. Most of these prayers
relate to specic situations, e.g., spiritual anguish, fear, uncertainty
or distress. Of these by far the most popular among the members
of the order are the izb al-bar, which is said to have been com-
municated to al-Shdhil directly by the Prophet, the izb al-kabr
(or ijb sharf ), the izb al-barr, the izb al-nr, the izb al-fat
and the izb al-Shaykh Ab l-asan [al-Shdhil]. The liturgical func-
tions of these prayers were often overshadowed by their magical
usage. The ordinary members of the Shdhil arqa believe in their
miraculous power to heal from illnesses or to protect from misfor-
tunes. This usage is contrary to al-Shdhil who opposed popular
superstitions, including worship at the tombs of saints, which he con-
demned as a form of idolatry. In his opinion, the fact that the saints
prayers are sometimes granted by God simply shows that in that
particular moment he happened to be the locus of divine mercy that
operates continually among mankind. Intrinsically, however, no hu-
man being, except the Prophet, can claim to be able to intercede on
behalf of ordinary believers. Nevertheless, already in his own life-
time, al-Shdhil acquired the reputation of a miracle worker. Upon
his death, the members of his order came to attribute thaumaturgic
powers to his tomb where prayers are believed to be especially bene-
cial and ecacious.
One issue on which al-Shdhil seems to have departed from main-
line Sunnism is sainthood. He saw the Sus as the true heirs to the
Prophets legacy, which most of the Sunn scholars held to be their
exclusive preserve. In al-Shdhils view, the accomplished saint can
achieve the same degree of knowledge as the prophets (anbiy") and
the messengers (rusul ). However, he is inferior to them in two respects:
on the one hand, his knowledge is, in most cases, less complete than
theirs; and on the other, his mission is neither to bring a new ver-
sion of the Divine Law, nor to abrogate the old one. Nevertheless,
in time, al-Shdhils teaching came to perceived by his followers as a
continuation of Muammads prophetic mission. Closely allied with
this notion is the idea of the invisible hierarchy of saints presided
over by the head of the Shdhiliyya brotherhood. As we have seen,
from the outset, al-Shdhil was preoccupied with the search for the
spiritual pole of the universe. Later on, his disciples came to treat
212 chapter eight
him as the qub of the agea belief that he not only did not try to
dispel, but may have actively promoted. Shortly before his death, he
designated his chief disciple Ab l-'Abbs al-Murs as his successor.
Since that time the Shdhil tradition insists that the qub of the age
should of necessity belong to their brotherhood, until the Judgement
Day. In al-Shdhils teaching, the function of the qub acquired uni-
versal dimensions in that it was not conned to a specic religious com-
munity or a people, but to the human race as a whole. Al-Shdhil
provides a list of fteen characteristic features of the oce of the
spiritual pole. They include infallibility, clairvoyance and knowledge
of the unseen.
Even though al-Shdhil may have not planned to form a Su
brotherhood, objectively his teaching responded to the need for a
Su teaching that would serve as a foundation of communal life.
The subsequent success of the order was secured by al-Shdhils
successors, the Andalus Ab l-'Abbs al-Murs (d. 686/1287) and
the Egyptian Ibn 'A" Allh al-Iskandar (d. 709/1309). They ex-
panded the popular base of the order through active recruitment in
the masses, rened and systematized al-Shdhils tenets, codied
the ritual of the dhikr, and founded a number of Shdhil khnaqs
which came to serve as centers of recruitment and training of new
followers. The Shdhil order soon spread throughout Egypt, Ifrqiya,
Morocco, al-Andalus as well as Syria and the ijz. This process
continued during the subsequent centuries which witnessed the emer-
gence of numerous branches and subdivisions of the order. As for
the founder, he is commemorated during the annual festivals at his
tomb in the eastern desert of Upper Egypt, as well as in Ifrqiya,
at Sd Belassen (on the outskirts of Tunis), Menzel Bouzelfa (Cape
Bon) and on the mount Zaghwn.
The Shdhiliyya
As an institution the Shdhiliyya owed its existence to the organi-
zational skills of al-Shdhils disciples who considered him to be the
pole (qub) of the Universe in his age. Upon the death of the founder,
the leadership of the nascent order devolved upon his deputy, the
Andalus mystic Ab l-'Abbs al-Murs (d. 686/1287). The latter
was able not only to maintain the cohesion of the Shdhil com-
munity but also to expand its base among the Egyptian population.
Al-Murs was succeeded by another able and dynamic leader, Ibn
unity and diversity in sufism 213
'A" Allh al-Iskandar, who was also a prolific writer. Ibn 'A"
Allhs works gave a distinctive articulation to al-Shdhils spiritu-
ality, forming the ideological basis of the expanding Shdhil broth-
erhood. Especially popular among the followers of the order was his
Delicacies of the Divine Gifts (La"if al-minan), the principal state-
ment of the Shdhil teaching. Equally important is his collection of
pious dicta, the [Words] of Wisdom (al-ikam). Its readership was
not restricted to the members of the order; the ikam was studied
and memorized all over the Muslim world and became an object of
several commentaries by such eminent Su scholars as Ibn 'Abbd
of Ronda (d. 792/1390), Amad Zarrq (d. 899/1493) and Ibn
'Ajba (d. 1224/1809).68
The formative period of the brotherhood remains somewhat obscure.
Throughout the eighth/fourteenth centuries it secured a foothold
in Egypt and the Maghrib. Although in the ninth/fteenth centuries
it became the major North African Su order, it did not acquire a
centralized and hierarchical structure. Rather it was dissolved into
a multitude of local subdivisions that were rarely connected with one
another. Each of these was led by a spiritual master who empha-
sized a specic strain within the rich and variegated Shdhil tradi-
tion. Some of these branches were conned to a particular region,
while others had their centers in dierent areas. But in all cases, the
Shdhil tradition presented itself more as a school of spirituality
than as a rigidly structured and cohesive organization. This feature
greatly facilitated its adaptation to diverse ethnic and regional con-
texts, while preserving the integrity of its formative ideas in the face
of the inevitable vagaries of leadership succession. The original Sh-
dhiliyya was born into an urban milieu (Alexandria, Cairo, Tunis)
and counted among its members many renowned scholars such as
the Andalus faqh Ibn 'Abbd of Ronda (d. 792/1390) and the out-
standing ninth/fteenth-century Egyptian polymath Jall al-Dn al-
Suy.69 However, as time went on, it made inroads into rural areas,
especially in the Maghrib. There it was often represented by popu-
lar charismatic leaders with little or no formal education, such as
the tenth/sixteenth-century mystic 'Al al-Sanhaj and his pupil
'Abd al-Ramn al-Majdhb. In the Maghrib as well as in the Nile
68
P. Nwyia, Ibn 'A" Allh et la naissance de la confrrie dilite, Beirut, 1972; Eng.
tr. V. Danner, Ibn Ataillahs Su Aphorisms, Leiden, 1973.
69
P. Nwyia, Ibn 'Abbd, un mystique prdicateur la Qarawiyin de Fes, Beirut, 1961.
214 chapter eight
70
Trimingham, Su Orders, p. 49.
71
See Depon and Coppolani, Les confrries, index.
unity and diversity in sufism 215
72
R. Brunel, Essai sur la confrrie des Assaouas au Maroc, Paris, 1926.
73
V. Crapanzano, The Hamadsha: A study in Moroccan ethnopsychology, Berkeley, 1973.
216 chapter eight
74
See, e.g., B. G. Martin, Muslim Brotherhoods in Nineteenth-Century Africa, Cambridge,
1976, pp. 152158.
75
J.-L. Michon, Le Sou marocain Amad ibn 'Ajiba et son mi'raj, Paris, 1973.
76
M. Lings, A Su Saint of the Twentieth Century, 2d edition, London, 1972.
unity and diversity in sufism 217
77
For details see E. Georoy, Le sousme en Egypte et en Syrie sous les derniers Mamelouks
et les premiers Ottomans: orientations spirituelles et enjeux culturels, Damascus, 1995.
78
E.g., on the Comoro Islands and in Zanzibar, Martin, Muslim Brotherhoods,
pp. 152158.
218 chapter eight
79
T. Graham, Shh Ni'matullh Wal, Founder of the Ni'matallh Su Order,
in L. Lewisohn (ed.), The Legacy of Medieval Persian Susm, London and New York,
1993, p. 180.
unity and diversity in sufism 219
from Bukhr and its environs. He left the region himself only three
times, twice to perform the ajj and once to visit Herat. There he
met with the ruler, Mu'izz al-Dn usayn, and explained to him
the principles of his path.
He died in 791/1389, and was buried at Qar-i 'rifn. Surrounded
by a continually expanding complex of buildings, the tomb became
a place of pilgrimage for Muslims from all over Asia as well as the
site, for Bukhrans, of spring festivities known as ' d-i gul-i surkh (red
rose festival).
Bah" al-Dns principal successors were Khwja 'Al" al-Dn 'Ar
(d. 802/1393), whom he had honored with marriage to his daugh-
ter; Khwja Muammad Prs (d. 822/1419), a prolic author who
counts as founder of the learned traditions of the Naqshband order;
and Mawln Ya'qb Charkh (d. 851/1447), who originated in the
region of Ghazn. 'Ar was the leading gure among these three,
but it was Charkh who proved the most important for the contin-
uation of the Naqshband line; he was the preceptor of Khwja
'Ubayd Allh Arr (d. 896/1490), under whose auspices the Naqsh-
bandiyya established its supremacy in Central Asia and began its
expansion in the wider Muslim world.
Bah" al-Dn left behind no writings (with the possible exception
of the litany named after him, Awrd-i Bah"iyya), and he even dis-
couraged his disciples from recording his sayings. The precise out-
lines of his teachings are, then, hard to discern, not because of the
profusion of hagiographic legend that enshrouds so many Sus, but
because of the exiguous and sometimes elliptic nature of the sources.
It is particularly dicult to establish why he should have become
an eponymous gure, the central link in the silsila of which he is a
part, instead of, for example, Ghijuwn. The eight principles of
spiritual conduct (kalimt-i qudsiyya) rst enunciated by Ghijuwn
have, after all, been reiterated in Naqshband handbooks down
to the present; precisely the fact that Bah" al-Dn added three fur-
ther principles to the eight would seem to reinforce the primacy
of Ghijuwn. These three were: wuqf-i zamn (temporal aware-
ness), the constant examination of ones spiritual state during dhikr;
wuqf-i 'adad (numerical awareness), the enumeration of the times
dhikr is performed in order to discourage the intrusion of distracting
thoughts; and wuqf-i qalb (awareness of the heart), the direction
of attention to the physical heart in order to make it participate in
the work of dhikr. All three principles relate, then, to dhikr; combined
unity and diversity in sufism 221
with the fact that Bah" al-Dn set himself apart from the other dis-
ciples of Amr Kull through insistence on silent dhikr, this suggests
that the question of dhikr was crucial for the early coalescence of the
Naqshband order.
Other features of early Naqshband practice were also linked to
the concern for sobriety and anonymity implied by the choice of
silent dhikr. Among them are the repudiation of music and dance
(sam' ); the deprecation of charismatic feats and saintly miracles (kar-
mt); the avoidance of retreats in favor of the keeping of pious com-
pany (ubat); and the shunning of distinctive forms of dress. As with
the Shdhiliyya, all these features are highly reminiscent of the
Malmat movement of Nshpr, and it may be suggested that
Bah" al-Dn Naqshband was an heir to the traditions of the Mal-
matiyya although not in a formal, initiatic sense.
Other recurrent features of the Naqshband path, such as delity
to the Shar'a in the political and social spheres as well as in devo-
tional life, and a marked hostility to Sh' Islam, were established in
later periods; they cannot be traced directly to Bah" al-Dn. Similarly,
the mildly critical attitude to Ibn 'Arab adopted by some Naqshbands
of the Mujaddid line cannot be attributed retroactively to Bah" al-
Dn and his circle. Although there is no trace of acquaintance with
the concepts of Ibn 'Arab in the dicta of Bah" al-Dn, both 'Ar
and Prs were enthusiastic exponents of his work.
80
For a comprehensive account of the orders history and doctrines see M. Gaborieu,
A. Popovic and T. Zarcone (eds.), Naqshbands: Cheminements et situation actuelle dun
ordre mystique, Istanbul-Paris, 1990.
222 chapter eight
arrived from Bukhr during the reign of sultan Murd III. Also
famous was 'Abd Allh Nid", an eleventh/seventeenth-century
migrant from Kshghr who established a tekke near Eyyb.
In general, however, the history of the order in Turkey came to
reect the developments it underwent in India, which was its prin-
cipal intellectual center from the time of Shaykh Amad Sirhind,
the Renewer (mujaddid ) (d. 1034/1624), whose contribution to the
Naqshband tradition will be discussed further on. The Mujaddid
branch of the order established by Sirhind was rst transmitted to
Turkey by shaykh Muammad Murd Bukhr (d. 1141/1729), a
murd of Khwja Muammad Murd Ma'm, Sirhinds son and
principal successor. Muammad Murd spent about ve years in the
Ottoman capital toward the end of the eleventh/seventeenth-century,
during which time he gained numerous ulema, including the Shaykh
al-Islm Fay Allh Efend, as his followers. The next thirty years
were spent primarily in Damascus, but he returned to Istanbul in
1141/1729, dying shortly thereafter. The tekke that was established
next to the tomb of Muammad Murd Bukhr in the Nishnj)
Pasha district became a fountainhead for the Mujaddidiyya, not only
in Istanbul but also in Anatolia and the Balkans.
A second transmission of the Mujaddidiya to Turkey came by way
of Mecca, which remained until the late nineteenth century an impor-
tant center for the diusion of the Naqshbandiyya among pilgrims
coming from Turkey as well as many other regions. The represen-
tative of Khwja Muammad Ma'm in the Holy City was shaykh
Amad Jryn Yakdast, who initiated into the Mujaddidiyya shaykh
Muammad Amn of Tokat (d. 1158/1745). When Muammad Amn
returned to Istanbul in 1129/1717, he took up residence at one of
the lodges founded by Amr Amad Bukhr and began initiating
members of the Ottoman bureaucracy. Particularly noteworthy among
the murds of Shaykh Muammad Amn was the polymath Sulaymn
Sa'd al-Dn Mustaqm-zde (d. 1202/1787), who translated the let-
ters of both Sirhind and Khwja Muammad Ma'm into Otto-
man Turkish. The letters of Sirhind have remained popular among
Turkish Naqshbands down to the present, although it is now more
commonly an Arabic translation that is used. Several of the early
Turkish Mujaddids also had aliations with the famous Mawlaw
order of Whirling Dervishes, among them being Pertew Pasha and
let Efend, both of whom exerted considerable political inuence
during the reign of sultan Mamd II. An entirely new era in the
unity and diversity in sufism 227
81
For a history of the Khlidiyya see B. Ab-Manneh, The Naqshbandiyya-
Mujaddidiyya in the Ottoman Lands in the Early 19th Century, in: Welt des Islam,
N.S., vol. 22 (1982), pp. 136.
228 chapter eight
82
F. Rahman, Akbars Religion, in: Journal of the Asiatic Society of Pakistan
(Karachi), vol. 10 ( June 1965), p. 126.
unity and diversity in sufism 231
83
E.g., Y. Friedmann, Shaykh Amad Sirhind, Montreal, 1971.
84
Ibid., pp. 106 and 109110.
232 chapter eight
85
See Qur"n 79:34.
86
Trimingham, Su Orders, p. 55.
unity and diversity in sufism 235
87
For an English translation of this book see H. Algar, The Path of Gods Bondsmen
from Origin to Return, Delmar, NY, 1982.
88
G.P. Snesarev, Relikty domusulmanskikh verovanii i obryadov u uzbekov Khorezma,
Moscow, 1969, pp. 269 and 433.
89
Trimingham, Su Orders, p. 56.
90
Edited with a comprehensive introduction to the life and work of Kubr by
F. Meier, Wiesbaden 1957.
91
Edited, together with other lesser treatises, by M. Mol under the title of Traits
mineurs, in: Annales Islamologiques (Cairo), vol. 4 (1963), pp. 178.
236 chapter eight
92
H. Corbin, En Islam iranien, Paris 1972, vol. 3, pp. 175176 and 276 n. 90.
93
M. A. Waley, A Kubrw Manual of Susm: The Fu al-adab of Yay al-
Bkharz, in: L. Lewisohn (ed.), The Legacy of Medieval Persian Susm, London and
New York, 1992, pp. 289290.
94
Ibid., p. 290.
95
Documents relating to this khnaq were published by C. D. Chekhovich,
Bukharskie dokumenti XIV v., Tashkent, 1965; cf. Waley, A Kubrw Manual of
Susm, p. 291.
unity and diversity in sufism 237
96
Ibid., p. 292.
97
J. Richard, La conversion de Berke et les dbuts de lislamisation de la Horde
dOr, in: Revue dEtudes Islamiques, vol. 35, (1967), pp. 1739.
98
Published by Mol under the title Kitb al-Insn al-kmil, Tehran and Paris
1962; cf. H. Landolt, Le paradoxe de la face de Dieu, in: StI (Paris), vol. 25/2
(1996), pp. 163192.
99
Trimingham, Su Orders, pp. 5657.
100
H. Landolt, Die Briefwechsel zwischen Kn und Simnn, in Der Islam,
vol. 50/1 (1973), pp. 2981.
101
Trimingham, Su Orders, p. 58.
238 chapter eight
102
D. DeWeese, Sayyid 'Al Hamadn and Kubraw Hagiographical Tra-
ditions, in: L. Lewisohn (ed.), The Legacy of Medieval Persian Susm, London and New
York, 1992, p. 124.
103
J. Teufel, Eine Lebensbeschreibung des Scheich 'Al-i Hamadn, Leiden, 1962.
104
R. Gramlich, Die schiitischen Derwischorden Persiens, Wiesbaden, 1965, vol. 1, pp.
1426.
105
For a list of works produced by the shaykhs of Saktari, see A. A. Semenov,
Sobranie vostochnykh rukopisei Akademii Nauk Uzbekskoi SSR, Tashkent 1955, vol. 3, pp.
3278.
unity and diversity in sufism 239
Dede is recorded to have fought in the ranks of the army that con-
quered Constantinople, but no lasting implantation of the order
appears to have taken place either in Turkey or in the Arab lands.
Only a nominal existence of the Kubrawiyya persisted in the west-
ern Islamic world as one of the multiple secondary aliations claimed
by Naqshbands of the Mujaddid-Khlid line.
106
T. Graham, Shh Ni'matullh, p. 174.
240 chapter eight
107
Ibid., pp. 176 and 180182.
108
Ibid., pp. 182183.
unity and diversity in sufism 241
authority with the newcomers. Ma'um 'Al Shh fell victim to their
hostility in 1212/1797, when he was captured and executed en route
from Najaf to Meshhed on the instance of the inuential Sh' scholar
Bihbahn, who was popularly known as Su killer (kush).
Ma'm 'Al Shhs principal companion was Nr 'Al Shh of
Ifhn, a prolic author in both poetry and prose. His works are
replete with ecstatic paradoxes similar to al-Bisms and themes
characteristic of extremist Sh'ism. In addition, Nr 'Al Shh
severely criticized the exoteric Sh' ulema who were responsible for
the death of his master. The presence of these radical elements in
the resurgent Ni'matullhiyya indicates that it must have departed
from the mystical precepts of its founder, Shh Ni'mat Allh Wal and
his immediate descendants and embraced the ideology of extreme
Sh'ism. Particularly disconcerting for the ulema was Nr 'Al Shhs
assertion that the perfect Su master is the true deputy (n"ib) of the
Hidden Sh' Imm. Eventually, the ulema succeeded in putting Nr
'Al Shh out of the way. He was poisoned by the agents sent to him
by Bihbahn.
Following the death of Bihbahn four years later, the antagonism
between the Ni'matullhiyya and the their learned opponents among
Sh' ulema began to decline. The rapprochement between the two
groups was facilitated after the Ni'matullhiyya leadership prudently
adopted more circumspect doctrines and practices. As it was no
longer seen as subversive by the Sh' scholarly and political estab-
lishment of the age, the Ni'matullhiyya ourished under the Qjr
rulers of Persia. One of them, Muammad Shh, himself became an
initiate of the order. Its inuence on the Persian masses and lite
continued to grow throughout the thirteenth/nineteenth centuries.
However, its physical and numerical expansion was accompanied by
its division into mutually hostile branches only the more important
of which will be mentioned here.
Muammad Ja'far Majb 'Al Shh (d. 1238/1823) was the last
leader to exercise undisputed control over the whole order. Three
separate claimants to the leadership arose after his death: Kawthar
'Al Shh (d. 1247/1831), Sayyd usayn Astrbd, and Zayn
al-'bidn Mast 'Al Shh (d. 1253/1838). The rst founded a sub-
order known as the Kawthariyya, which has survived down to the
present, although with a very small membership. Its most famous
leader in modern times was Nir 'Al Shh (still living in the late
1970s). The line that descended from Astrbd also reached into
unity and diversity in sufism 243
1
For a comprehensive study of Susm in Persia see L. Lewisohn (ed.), The Legacy
of Medieval Persian Susm, London and New York, 1992; idem (ed.), Classical Persian
Susm: From its origins to Rumi, London and New York, 1993.
246 chapter nine
2
Cf. Martin, Muslim Brotherhoods, pp. 18.
3
See V. Cornell, Realm of the Saint: Power and authority in Morocco, Austin, TX,
1998.
sufi institutions in regional contexts 247
4
Trimingham, Su Orders, pp. 8485.
5
Ibid., p. 85.
6
M. Lings, A Moslem Saint of the Twentieth Century. 2d edition, London, 1972.
sufi institutions in regional contexts 249
7
For the political role of the Qdiriyya in nineteenth-century Africa see Martin,
Muslim Brotherhoods, pp. 1567.
8
J. M. Abun-Nasr, The Tijniyya: A Su order in the modern world, London, 1965.
9
Trimingham, Su Orders, p. 108.
250 chapter nine
10
R. S. OFahey, The Enigmatic Saint: Amad Ibn Idrs and the Idrs Tradition,
Evanston, IL, 1990.
11
See K. Vikr, Su and Scholar on the Desert Edge: Muammad b. 'Al al-Sans and
His Brotherhood, London, 1995.
sufi institutions in regional contexts 251
12
M. Chodkiewicz, The Spiritual Writings of Amir 'Abd al-Kader, trans. by J. Chrestensen
and T. Manning. Albany, N.Y., 1995.
sufi institutions in regional contexts 253
The Tijniyya
In the course of the thirteenth/nineteenth and the rst half of the
fourteenth/twentieth century, Su teachings were disseminated over
vast areas of the continent through the activities of both Maghrib
and Egyptian brotherhoods; in many cases they were conduits for
conversion to Islam. The Tijniyya gained a considerable number of
adherents in Morocco and Algeria, and its zwiyyas were established
in Egypt and the Sdn. But it is in Mauritania and West Africa
that its spread has been most noteworthy. In southern Mauritania
it was taken up by the powerful clan Idaw 'Al under the inuence
of Muammad al- (d. 1247/1830), a disciple of al-Tijn, who
was sent to proselytize in Senegal.15 From there it spread to Senegal
and Guinea.
The great Tijn leader al-ajj 'Umar (d. 1280/1864) of the
Tokolor tribe of Senegal had studied with Muammad al- before
he left Africa to perform a ajj. In Mecca, al-ajj 'Umar became a
student of another Tijn shaykh, Muammad al-Ghl, who gave
him special instruction in the rituals of the Tijniyya and made him
a khalfa of the order. A man of exceptional talent, 'Umars interests
oscillated between spiritual commitement, mysticism and theology on
13
B. Radtke, Ijtihd and Neo-susm, in: Asiatische Studien, 48/3 (1994), p. 915.
14
C. Snouck Hurgronje, Mecca in the Latter Part of the 19th Century, Leiden, 1931,
pp. 1112.
15
Martin, Muslim Brotherhoods, p. 69.
254 chapter nine
16
Ibid., p. 68.
17
Ibid., p. 79.
18
Ibid., pp. 8182.
19
Ibid., pp. 9798.
sufi institutions in regional contexts 255
during his retreats (khalwa). He was also credited with the knowledge
of Gods Greatest Name and clairvoyance. A renowned religious
scholar, he wrote a number of works that are held in high regard
by the adherents of the Tijniyya arqa. His nephew, Muammad
al-Hshim b. Amad b. Sa'd, known as Alfa Hshim (d. 1349/1931),
ed French colonialism and established a base in the ijz that
catered to African Tijns; because of its location in the lands of pil-
grimage, it was instrumental in the propagation of the Tijniyya
among Muslims from other areas of the world (e.g., Indonesia, Iraq
and the Balkans). In the fourteenth/twentieth century, the chief
African propagandist for the order has been the Senegalese shaykh
Ibrhm Niasse (d. 1396/1975), who has made the Tijniyya an
order of mass participation not only in Senegal but also in north-
ern Nigeria and Ghana. His teachings, which emphasize spiritual
training and growth under the tutelage of an accomplished Sufi
master, have also found favor with the populations of Mauritania,
Chad and the Western Sdn.
this order he was linked to the spiritual tradition associated with Ibn
Idrs.20 On his return home, Muammad 'Abdallh began to preach
Ibn Idrss ideas among his countrymen. His activities drew the hos-
tile attention of the established Qdiriyya order and of the British
colonial regime that controlled the Somalian coast. Their opposition,
combined with the increasing Ethiopian encroachment on the lands
of the Ogaden tribe, prompted Muammad to proclaim a holy war
( jihd ) against the Christian intruders and to storm a recently estab-
lished Ethiopian post in the Ogaden region. During 1321/1904
Muammad and his followers, who came to known as Dervishes,
had to wage war against the British expeditionary force. Although
not decisively defeated, the Dervishes prudently withdrew to the
Italian sector of Somalia, where they signed a peace treaty with the
Italians. By 132526/1908, the Dervishes had recovered their strength
and pursued their campaign with increasing ferocity during World
War I, until their nal defeat by a concerted air, sea, and land oper-
ation in 1338/1920. The leader of the movement died
later that year at the age of fty-six. Paradoxically, the end of this guerilla
war waged to free Somalia of foreign domination found the British,
Ethiopian, and Italian colonizers more rmly entrenched than they
had been at the start. While Sayyid Muammad, as the Dervish
leader styled himself, sought to unite his countrymen in defense of
their freedom irrespective of their clan allegiances, he inevitably drew
heavily upon traditional kinship and marriage ties in forming alliances.
He was bitterly opposed by the Sus of the Qdiriyya order, whose
leader in southern Somalia was assassinated by a party of his dervishes.
His strongest support came from his own clan, while the western
Somalian clans, more rmly under British inuence, never rallied
fully to his call and in fact denounced him as a tyrant and fanatic.
All, however, recognized his qualities as the leading Somalian poet
of his epoch and admired his brilliant command of Somalian rhetoric.
Sayyid Muammad left behind a legacy of patriotism that inspires
Somalians to this day. He is often seen by his countrymen, some-
what anachronistically, as the leader of the movement for national
liberation and even as the founder of the Somalian nation.21
20
Muammad b. lis father was a disciple of Ibn Idrs; see Martin, Muslim
Brotherhoods, p. 179.
21
Ibid., p. 180.
sufi institutions in regional contexts 257
him in 1881 was soundly defeated, did they recognize his power.
In the meantime, al-Mahd and his anar, retreated into the Nuba
Mountains. The remote location and rugged terrain of his new head-
quarters rendered them nearly impregnable to the government forces.
From his mountain fastness, al-Mahd sent raiding troops to Kordofan.
He found an eager support among the Arab pastoralist tribes known
as Baqqra, whose propensity to raiding settled populations found a
religious justication when al-Mahd declared his war against the
government to be a jihd. In a series of successful military campaigns,
al-Mahd captured a number of governmental strongholds in Kor-
dofan and established his own state with El Obeid as its adminis-
trative center. After the British occupied Egypt in September 1882,
they sent an Egyptian expeditionary force against al-Mahd. When
it was wiped out by the anr in November 1883, al-Mahd became
the undisputed master of the western provinces of the country. At
that juncture, General Gordon was sent to Khartoum to protect the
capital from the impending assault of al-Mahds army. However,
after a long siege, the city fell to the rebels in January 1885 and
General Gordon was killed in the battle. With the capital rmly in
the rebels hands, al-Mahd was now the master of most of the
Egyptian Sdn. His career, however, was cut short by his untimely
death after a short illness, in June 1885.
Following al-Mahds death, the leadership of the movement devolved
upon his closest lieutenant, 'Abdallh b. Muammad. Anxious to
whip up support among the war-like Baqqra tribes, 'Abdallh empha-
sized the parallel between his succession to al-Mahd and the rule
of Islams rst caliph, Ab Bakr. He called upon his followers to
keep faith in al-Mahds cause and to continue his eorts to restore
Islam to its original purity. On the practical level, he continued war-
fare against the neighboring Christian kingdom of Ethiopia, while
at the same time pursuing a jihd against Egypt, now rmly under
British rule. A massive invasion of Egypt, however, ended in disas-
ter in 1889, when a Mahdist force was annihilated at Toski. Some
provinces under the caliphs rule made a bid for independence, which
had to be suppressed by military force. The year 1889 marks the end
of the military phase of the Mahdiyya movement. In the subsequent
years the caliph attempted to consolidate his authority over the state
that consisted of the Muslim regions of the northern Sdn. He
succeeded in putting down several revolts against his rule, one of
which was led by the caliph 'Al, that is, Muammad Sharf. The
260 chapter nine
22
Ibid., pp. 7576 and 9293.
262 chapter nine
23
Ibid., pp. 2425.
24
D. Cruise OBrien, The Mourids of Senegal, Oxford, 1971; idem. Charisma and
Brotherhood in African Islam, Oxford, 1988.
sufi institutions in regional contexts 263
25
Martin, Muslim Brotherhoods, p. 125.
264 chapter nine
26
N. Clayer, Mystique, tat et socit: Les Halvetis dans laire balkanique de la n du X e
sicle nos jours, Leiden, 1994, p. 5.
sufi institutions in regional contexts 265
27
Clayer, Mystique, pp. 56.
28
Ibid., p. 7.
266 chapter nine
29
F. de Jong, Mustafa Kamal al-Bakri (16881749): Revival and reform of the
Khalwatiyya tradition, in: N. Levtzion and J. O. Voll (eds.), Eighteenth-Century Renewal
and Reform in Islam, Syracuse-New York, 1987, pp. 117132.
sufi institutions in regional contexts 267
30
For the branches of the Khalwatiyya in post-Ottoman Egypt see F. de Jong,
uruq and uruq-linked Institutions in Nineteenth-Century Egypt, Leiden, 1978.
268 chapter nine
31
For details see Clayer, Mystique, passim.
32
E. Bannerth, La Khalwatiyya en Egypte, in: MIDEO, vol. 8 (19646), pp.
174.
sufi institutions in regional contexts 269
33
See a discussion of khalwa in chapter ten of this study.
270 chapter nine
The Yasawiyya
Apart from the Khalwatiyya brotherhood, several other orders
played an important role in the Turkic-speaking territories that stretch
from Anatolia to Eastern Turkestan. If we were to look for a typi-
cal Turkic order, the Yasawiyya of Transoxania and Eastern Turkes-
tan would t the bill. From the sixth/twelfth century onward this
loosely structured initiatic line was active in disseminating Islam
among the Turkic peoples and the Mongol rulers of the Golden
Horde. Its founder, Amad Yasaw, or Yasev (d. 562/1162), was
probably a disciple of the great charismatic leader Ab Ysuf
Hamadn (d. 534/1140), who, in turn, traced his spiritual geneal-
ogy back to Ab Yazd al-Bism. Yasaws poetic collection in a
Turkic vernacular, called Wisdom (ikmet), became the ideological
foundation of his loosely structured order. Passages from the ikmet
34
J. S. Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia, Oxford, 1952, p. 247.
272 chapter nine
The Qalandariyya
Already in the sixth/twelfth-seventh/thirteenth centuries we nd
references to wandering dervishes (qalandars) who had become part
and parcel of the local religious landscape in both Central Asia and
Anatolia. The Qalandars usually did not organize themselves in cen-
tralized orders; however, they donned distinctive garments, practiced
itinerancy and followed the unwritten rules that set them apart from
the rest of the Sus. By the tenth/sixteenth century, the Qalandariyya
groups disappeared from Anatolia, yet they survived in Central Asia
and in Eastern Turkestan until the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury C.E.38
35
T. Zarcone, Le Turkestan Chinois, in: A. Popovic and G. Veinstein (eds.),
Les Voies dAllah, Paris, 1996, p. 270.
36
D. DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion of the Golden Horde, University Park,
Pennsylvania, 1994.
37
Zarcone, Le Turkestan, p. 270.
38
Ibid., pp. 268270.
sufi institutions in regional contexts 273
39
J. Baldick, Les Qalenderis, in: A. Popovic and G. Veinstein (eds.), Les Voies
dAllah, pp. 500501.
40
A. Karamustafa, Gods Unruly Friends, Salt Lake City, 1994, p. 40.
41
Ibid., p. 41.
42
Ibid., pp. 4344.
274 chapter nine
life and for both secular and religious authorities. His followers
eschewed hypocrisy, despised precious metals and valuable objects,
but worshipped beautiful faces, which they, in line with the doctrine
of the ulmniyya, viewed as manifestations of the eternal divine
beauty in a human guise. Jaml al-Dns followers in Anatolia came
to be known as the wearers of sack-cloth ( jawlaqiyya). Since the move-
ment was anti-establishment by its very nature, it formed a number
of small localized groups that were found, apart from Anatolia, in
Persia and India. In India, a few famous Su leaders and intellectu-
als, such as the poet Fakhr al-Dn 'Irq (d. 686/1287) and Amr
usayn (d. 718/1318), were, at some points in their lives, attracted
to the uncompromising piety of the Qalandariyya and embraced
their anti-establishment attitudes. An extreme version of Qalandar
piety is represented by the aydariyya brotherhood that ourished in
the Ottoman domains in the ninth/fteenth and tenth/sixteenth
centuries. They covered themselves with sacks, coarse felt, or sheep-
skins and wore iron rings on their ears, necks, wrists, and genitals.43
They took a dim view of the ocial religion and regularly outed
all rules of social conduct. Ottoman scholars routinely accused them
of such vices as pedophilia, the smoking of cannabis and drunkenness.44
43
Ibid., p. 68.
44
Baldick, Les Qalenderis, p. 501.
sufi institutions in regional contexts 275
garment, namely the khirqa and the crown (tj ) that had so far char-
acterized the followers of the Bayramiyya. Apart from that, little is
known about the disagreement between the two branches of the
Bayramiyya. It may have been caused by the personal rivalry between
two groups of jj Bayrams disciples. Later sources tended to
describe this disagreement in doctrinal terms. While the followers of
Aq Shams al-Dn adopted a mainline Su doctrine that stressed the
vast gap between God and his creatures, the Malmatiyya seem to
have upheld al-alljs idea that God can manifest himself in the
personalities of some perfect friends of God, namely in the leaders
of the Malmatiyya sect. This concept aroused the suspicions of
many mainstream Sunn ulema of the Ottoman Empire, who inter-
preted it as an implicit denial of the Shar'a and the blurring of the
all-important line between what is permitted and what is prohibited
by the Muslim Law. Some statements of the Malmat masters show
their apparent indebtedness to the teachings of the uryyaa
cabbalistic sect whose leaders claimed to have achieved divinity, to
have superceded the Muslim revelation and to have instituted a new,
esoteric religion. As a result, the Malmatiyya fell victim to perse-
cutions that provided them with their rst martyrs. These persecu-
tions forced the Malmatiyya to go underground and conceal their
true beliefs from the uninitiated masses, including the ruling class,
who were proclaimed mere animals undeserving of the higher
truths that were known only to the Malmat shaykhs. Leaders of
the Malmatiyya insisted that their followers refrain from any exter-
nal display of piety; they wore regular dresses and practiced no rites
that would identify them as members of the same religious group.45
Until the rst quarter of the tenth/sixteenth century the Malmatiyya
was conned to Central Anatolia. However, the dynamic new leader
Oghln Shaykh began to preach the Malmat teachings among
the soldiers and civilians of the Ottoman capital, until he was appre-
hended, accused of heresy and put to death in accordance with a
condemnatory fatw of the great Ottoman scholar and statesman
Keml Pashazde (d. 940/1534). Another Malmat, Shaykh Amad
the Cameleer (d. 952/1545), introduced the Malmatiyya into the
Balkans. The order became especially deep-rooted in Bosnia, where
it adopted an anti-government stance by refusing to recognize the
45
T. Zarcone, Muammad Nr al-'Arab et la confrrie Malmatiyya, in:
A. Popovic and G. Veinstein (eds.), Les voies dAllah, p. 480.
276 chapter nine
46
Ibid., p. 481.
sufi institutions in regional contexts 277
The Bektshiyya
The history of the Bektshiyya begins with the arrival in Anatolia
from Khursn of its semi-legendary founder jj Bektsh Wal in
the middle of the seventh/thirteenth century. Little is known about
his background, although some researchers associate him with the
bbs, that is, the itinerant preachers who spread Islam in Anatolia
among the recently immigrated Turkic nomadic and seminomadic
tribes.48 According to some reports, jj Bektsh was a follower of
Bb Ilys and Bb Isq, who led a popular revolt that shook the
Saljuq State in 638/1240. When the rebel troops were demolished by
a Saljuq army in 638/1240, jj Bektsh was one of the few sur-
vivors, who continued to propagate his version of Islama peculiar
mixture of Susm, Sh'ism, and Turkic folk beliefs49among the
nomadic and settled Turkic tribesmen of Anatolia. Despite the over-
all obscurity and unreliability of the sources, his links to the Turkic
tribal milieu do not cause serious doubts. While jj Bektsh pro-
vided the movement with his name, its true organizational founder
was Blim Suln, who was appointed as the head of the chief
Bektsh tekke by the Ottoman sultan Byazd II in 907/1501. Around
that time or later, the order split into two factions. One faction, the
oyn, was associated with the presumed descendants of jj
Bektsh, called Cheleb, who occupied the orders main lodge between
Qirshehir and Qayseri. The other faction, known as Bbgn, was
ruled by the so-called Dede-Bb (grand master), who was elected
47
Ibid., p. 483.
48
I. Mliko, Lordre des Bektachis et les groupes relevant de Hadji Bektach,
in: A. Popovic and G. Veinstein (eds.), Bektachiyya, Istanbul, 1995, p. 3; cf. S. Faroqhi,
The Bektashis: A report on current research, in: ibid., pp. 9 and 1315.
49
Mliko, Lordre, p. 4.
278 chapter nine
50
J. Birge, The Bektashi Order of Dervishes, London, 1937, pp. 5658; N. Clayer,
La Bektachiyya, in: A. Popovic and G. Veinstein (eds.), Le voies dAllah, Paris,
1996, pp. 468469.
51
Faroqhi, The Bektashis, p. 19.
52
Clayer, La Bektachiyya, p. 470.
53
Mliko, Lordre, p. 6.
54
Faroqhi, The Bektashis, pp. 1920.
55
Idem., Der Bektaschi-Orden in Anatolien, Vienna, 1981, pp. 5355.
sufi institutions in regional contexts 279
56
Idem, The Bektashis, p. 21; Clayer, La Bektachiyya, p. 469.
57
Ibid., p. 470.
58
Ibid., pp. 471472.
280 chapter nine
cheese, wine and bread) as well as in its everyday practices (e.g., the
confession of sins before the spiritual leader). Others have traced its
beliefs back to Sh'ism, pointing to the Bektsh veneration of 'Al
and the other 'Alid martyrs as well as to the Bektsh secret belief
that 'Al, Muammad and God form a trinity. Still others have
emphasized the similarity between Bektsh teachings and the secret
cabbalistic speculations of the heretical uryya sect and the orders
anity with the radical groups of the Kizilbsh Turkomans that
believed in the divinity of their leaders.59 Finally, all investigators
agree that the Bektshiyya integrated many pre-Islamic Turkic cults,
which were current among its rst Turkoman followers, with vari-
ous Su trends, for instance, a belief in the Su path as a means
to attain perfection and to enter into the presence of God. This intri-
cate intertwining of diverse elements has given the Bektshiyya its
recognizable Turkic character and its unique syncretism.
59
Mliko, Lordre, pp. 45; Faroqhi, The Bektashis, pp. 2326.
60
For a comprehensive tableau of Indian Susm see A. A. Rizvi, A History of
Susm in India, New Delhi, 1978.
sufi institutions in regional contexts 281
61
C. Ernst, Eternal Garden: Mysticism, history, and politics at a South Asian Su center,
Albany, NY, 1992.
282 chapter nine
service of the poor and the needy over against engaging in formal
prayers and spiritual exercises. His own lodge became a welfare cen-
ter where free meals were served to all visitors. He also distributed
money to the poor and the needy on a very large scale. His char-
itable activities and sympathy for the needs of the masses earned
him great popularity in the Delhi sultanate and beyond. Nim al-
Dn left many disciples, who propagated his ideas in various provinces
of India: shaykh Chirgh in Delhi, shaykh Munawwar in the Panjab,
Burhn al-Dn Gharb in the Deccan, Mawln usm al-Dn in
Gujarat, and Mawln Sirj al-Dn in Bengal.
The Suhrawardiyya arqa, which was introduced into India by
Shaykh Bah" al-Dn Zakariyy" (d. 661/1262), reached the peak of
its popularity under Shaykh Rukn al-Dn Ab l-Fat (d. 735/1334)
and Sayyid Jall al-Dn Makhdm-i Jahniyn (d. 788/1386). Though
both Indian arqas looked to Shaykh Shihb al-Dn Suhrawards
'Awrif al-ma'rif as their guide, they diered in their organization of
communal life and relations with the state. While the early Chisht
shaykhs refused to accept endowments of land or donations from
the government and relied exclusively on the pious gifts of private
individuals, their Suhraward counterparts had no compunctions about
mixing up with the members of the ruling class and beneting from
their largesse.62
The Firdawsiyya arqa, which traced its genealogy back to the
Kubrawiyya of Central Asia, was introduced into India by Shaykh
Badr al-Dn of Samarqand. Initially, its shaykhs were based in Dehli,
but later moved to Bihr Sharf. There the order enjoyed great pop-
ularity under shaykh Sharaf al-Dn Yay Manr (d. 782/1381),
who was both a meticulous collector and transmitter of adth and
a sophisticated exponent of Su categories and concepts. His most
comprehensive work was a commentary on the popular Su cate-
chism, the Adab al-murdn by Ab l-Najb al-Suhraward, which was
discussed earlier in this study.
The Qdiriyya arqa was established in India by Sayyid Muammad
Makhdm Gln (d. 923/1517), and ourished under shaykh Dwd
Kirmn (d. 982/1574), Shh Qumays Gln (d. 998/1584), Miyn
Mr (d. 1045/1635) and Mull Shh (d. 1072/1661).
The Shariyya arqa was introduced into India by Shh 'Abdallh
(d. 890/1485), a descendant of shaykh Shihb al-Dn al-Suhraward.
62
Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, pp. 342 and 352.
sufi institutions in regional contexts 283
Susm In Indonesia
The rst concrete evidence of Su practices in Indonesia are attested
in the sources from the late tenth/sixteenth century, that is, at least
three centuries after the spread of Islam to this part of the world.
This and the following century (eleventh/seventeenth) witnessed a
rapid spread of Su values and practices among the local popula-
tions, especially in the ourishing Muslim sultanate of Acheh (Atjeh)
in northern Sumatra. Here we nd the rst prominent exponent of
Susm in the Indonesian Archipelago, amza Fanr, who was
active in the second half of the tenth/sixteenth century.63 An adher-
ent of the doctrine of wadat al-wujd and of the seven stages of exist-
ence, as expounded by Ibn 'Arab and his follower 'Abd al-Karm
al-Jl (d. 832/1428), Fanr is famous for his mystical poems of
great lyrical power. Apart from his native Malay, he had a masterly
grasp of both Arabic and Persian, which he used to disseminate Su
doctrines among his compatriots. He also wrote his own reections
on such standard themes of speculative Susm as the four stages of
the mystical path (shar 'a, arqa, aqqa and ma'rifa), the nature of
existence (wujd ), the divine attributes, and mystical rapture. His ter-
minology reveals his indebtedness to the Su discourses of al-Ghazl,
Ibn 'Arab, Rm, and Jm.64 Fanrs precise Su aliation remains
obscure, although his own comments suggest that he belonged to the
Qdiriyya order.65 Commentaries on several of amza Fanrs works
were written by his disciple Shams al-Dn al-Samatr" (d. 1039/1630).
Little is known about his life until his quick rise to prominence in
the rst decade of the eleventh/seventeenth century. During that
time, Shams al-Dn served as a religious advisor and spiritual direc-
tor of the powerful sultan Iskandar Muda of Atjeh, whom he inducted
into the Naqshbandiyya brotherhood. On the death of Iskandar
Muda in 1046/1636 and the accession of Iskandar II in 1048/1637,
Shams al-Dn al-Samatr" lost his position to the Indo-Arab scholar
Nr al-Dn al-Ranr (d. 1068/1658). An ardent adherent of the
Indian Su reformer Amad Sirhind, al-Ranr vigorously attacked
both al-Samatr" and his shaykh, amza Fanr, on account of
their espousal of Ibn 'Arabs doctrine of oneness of being (wadat
63
For a possible date of his death see S. M. Al-Attas, The Mysticism of Hamza
Fansuri, Kuala Lumpur, 1970, pp. 1114.
64
Ibid., pp. 14 and 142175.
65
Ibid., pp. 1011.
sufi institutions in regional contexts 287
66
For a discussion of the nature of Ranrs opposition to both amza and his
followers see ibid., pp. 3165.
288 chapter nine
was an almost total disaster, showing that the Imm had learned
well the lessons of Akhulgo and adjusted his strategy accordingly.
With his prestige at its peak, Shmil endeavored to extend his rule
to Kabarda and to unify the mountain tribes of the Caucasus against
the Russians. His ambitious plans, however, were frustrated by the
brilliant strategy of general Freytag, the inaptitude of his lieutenant
Nr 'Al, and the resultant failure of the Kabardians to join his
army. More importantly, this campaign demonstrated the vast dis-
parity between Shmils resources and those of the Russian Empire
a disparity that would eventually lead to his undoing. Having realized
the futility of the one-blow strategy, the Russians started to imple-
ment a more methodical, if less oensive strategy, known as the
system of the axe. It consisted in steadily encircling Shmil by a
network of defensive lines and military posts aimed at cutting him
o from Chechnyahis major source of food supplies and man-
power. Throughout 18461849, the Russians were erecting fortications
in, and cutting roads through, the impenetrable forests of Greater
Chechnya. Simultaneously they pacied the population of the fer-
tile Chechen plains, chasing those who refused to submit into the
barren mountains. In the meantime, another Russian force attempted
to destroy Shmils strongholds in Central Dghestna goal for
which they paid an enormous price in money, ammunition, and
human lives. The Russian successes, however, proved short-lived.
Once the Russian troops had withdrawn, the Imm quickly rebuilt
his fortications and invaded Southern Dghestn, where he found
support among the local free communities that hoped to get rid of
the oppressive Russian rule. In a dramatic reversal of roles, Shmil
invested several Russian fortresses, and was poised to achieve a deci-
sive victory. However, his plans were frustrated by the heroic stand
of a small Russian garrison at Akhty, whose dogged resistance gave
the Russians the opportunity to regroup and to repel Shmils levies.
On the Chechen front, Shmil tried to forestall Russian clearing
operations by strengthening his line of defense and by deploying
against the Russian troops his cherished regular infantry corps built
on the model of the Ottoman nim-i jadd. The latter were soundly
defeated on March 11th, 1851 by colonel Baryatinskii, forcing Shmil
to revert to the tried guerilla tactics and to relinquish any hope of
defeating the Russian army in a pitched battle. Turning his atten-
tion to Dghestn, Shmil sent his best military commander and life-
long rival ajj Murd to Russian-controlled Qaytaq and abasarn
292 chapter nine
67
R. S. OFahey and B. Radtke, Neo-Susm Reconsidered, in: Der Islam, vol.
70 (1993), passim.
296 chapter nine
68
P. Marty, Etudes sur lIslam au Sngal, Paris, 1917, vol. 1, p. 261.
69
London, 1994.
298 chapter nine
70
M. Bennigsen (ed.), The North Caucasus Barrier, London, 1992.
71
Ch. Lemercier-Quelquejay, Le Caucase in: A. Popovic and G. Veinstein
(eds.), Les voies dAllah, Paris, 1996, pp. 300308; A. Bennigsen and S. E. Wimbush,
Mystics and Commissars: Susm in the Soviet Union, Berkeley, 1985.
300 chapter nine
72
Cf. Martin, Muslim Brotherhoods, pp. 811.
CHAPTER TEN
1
Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, p. 4.
302 chapter ten
2
Ibid., p. 29.
major sufi concepts and institutions 303
Closely allied with the Su idea of the mystical path are the con-
cepts of spiritual state (l ) and station (maqm). According to
most Su writers, a classical formulation of these concepts was rst
provided by the Egyptian mystic Dhu l-Nn al-Mir (d. 245/859)
and further elaborated by his contemporary in Baghdad, al-rith
al-Musib (d. 243/857). As we have seen, the doctrine of the mys-
tical stations and states may have emerged somewhat earlier.3 The
term l gures prominently in the technical vocabulary of the gram-
mar-ians, the physicians and the jurists. It seems possible that al-
Musib borrowed it from the medical science of the time, where
it signied the actual functional (physiological) equilibrium of a
human organism. Al-Musib and later Sus treated it as a product
of the mystics direct encounter (wajd ) with the Divine Reality that
produces in his soul a sense of equilibrium and tranquility or, con-
versely, a rapture. In any event, the l results in a drastic reassess-
ment of his view of his personal condition, of his self and of his
relations with God and the world. In the grammatical theories of
the time, l denoted the state of the verb in relation to the agent,
that is, its subjective state. The grammatical usage of the term
had a direct inuence on the vocabulary of Islamic speculative the-
ology (kalm) in which it came to signify an intermediate mode of
being that is neither existence nor non-existence. In the Mu'tazil
doctrine, l could also mean a specic mode of [divine] existence,
a more-or-less constant state of the Divine Essence, or, in other
words, its attribute. In general, in Islamic theology the term state
3
See the section on Shaqq al-Balkh in Chapter 1 of this study.
304 chapter ten
4
Baldick, Mystical Islam, p. 55.
5
Ibid.
6
Nicholson, The Kashf al-majb, p. 236.
306 chapter ten
7
Ibid., p. 369.
major sufi concepts and institutions 307
Likewise, Ibn 'Arab included idq in his list of the nine principal
conditions of the mystical path together with hunger, vigil, silence,
retreat, trust in God, patience, determination, and certainty, which
he dubbed the Mothers of Virtue.
The centrality of sincerity and truthfulness for Su piety is fur-
ther attested by such statements as nothing beaties man more per-
fectly than idq, and sincerity is the sword of God on the earth
that cuts everything it touches, that is, mans attachment to this
world par excellence. In the latter dictum, as elsewhere, sincerity/truth-
fulness are associated with sturdiness (shidda) and rmness (alba)
qualities which, according to Su writers, rendered it both an eective
oensive weapon in attaining self-perfection and a reliable shield
against devilish temptations.
As time went on, Su psychology provided increasingly detailed
accounts of sincerity and truthfulness. A typical example is al-Ghazls
treatment of these concepts in the special chapters of his momen-
tous Revival of the Religious Sciences. In dealing with the notion
of idq he identied six dierent types of truthfulness: in word, in
intention and volition, in determination, in commitment, in deed,
and nally, in fullling the requirements of the mystical path (arq).
Yet, despite its overriding importance for Su self-disciple, adherence
to truthfulness was not considered absolute. According to al Ghazl
and Ibn 'Arab, it is always contingent on concrete circumstances.
For instance, telling truth about someone in his/her absence amounts
to backbiting and will be judged accordingly in the hereafter.
The same goes for those who speak publicly of their sexual life,
although their accounts may be accurate. On the other hand, a
pious lie that helps to save the life of a Muslim or to protect a state
secret may, in Gods eyes, be a meritorious deed.
Basing themselves on Qur"n 5:108120 and 3:81, some Su
exegetes mused over the question of sincerity (su"l al-idq) which
God poses to Qur"nic Jesus ('s) on the Judgement Day. In response,
's squarely disowns his misguided worshipers who took him and
his mother for deities. In so doing he successfully passes the test,
showing both pure sincerity and saintly humility.
Although man shares the attribute of idq with God, who is some-
times described as Truthful (al-diq), human sincerity is of an imper-
fect, inferior nature, unless, in accordance with the famous hadith,
the mystic has reached the exalted spiritual state in which God
becomes his hearing . . ., his sight . . ., his hand . . ., and his foot
major sufi concepts and institutions 309
that is, his sole raison dtre and mover. This is, in the view of Ibn
'Arab and some other later Sus, the utmost degree of sincerity and
truthfulness that signies that the wayfarer has reached the stage of
perfect servanthood (al-'ubdiyya).
8
A. Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition, Oxford, 1981, p. xv.
9
For details see Gardet and Anawati, Mystique musulmane, pp. 97106.
310 chapter ten
Su Epistemology: Kashf
10
W. Chittick, The Su Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-'Arabs metaphysics of imagination,
Albany, N.Y., 1989, pp. 147170.
11
Ibid., p. 170.
312 chapter ten
12
Arberry, The Doctrine, pp. 117119 (The Doctrine of Revelation and Veiling).
major sufi concepts and institutions 313
the eyes, without any possible grounds for doubt.13 In other words,
for al-Ghazl, kashf is a light, a grace from God, which grants its
possessor a sure knowledge of God. Similar concepts of kashf can be
found in the works of later Su theorists, including those who adhered
to a Sh' version of Susm, e.g., aydar Amol (the eighth/four-
teenth century). They also viewed kashf as a superior cognitive method
that allowed its possessors to unravel the mysteries of being encoded
in the Scriptures and in the world around them. In accord with
their Sh' convictions, Sh' mystics ascribed kashf to their leaders
(imms) or to their representatives in the contemporary Sh' com-
munity. A similar understanding of this concept can be also found
in the Ism'l doctrine that emphasizes that the Qur"n is nothing
but a collection of symbols that hides the authentic, hidden mean-
ing of the divine of revelation.14
Khalwa
In Su practice, the term khalwa in the meaning of retirement, seclu-
sion, retreat (from the verb khal to be alone) occupies a promi-
nent place. More specically, it denotes isolation in a solitary place
or cell, which was often accompanied by intense meditation, self-
imposed strictures, vows of silence, and spiritual exercises. Khalwa
and its numerous synonyms ('uzla, wada, inrd, inqi' ), which con-
note voluntary seclusion or retreat, constitutes one of the funda-
mental principles of asceticism (zuhd ). The predilection of the early
Muslim ascetics for a solitary, secluded way of life is amply illus-
trated by Su hagiographic literature. Whether or not the example
13
F. Jabre, La notion de certitude selon Ghazali, Paris, 1958.
14
H. Halm, The Empire of the Mahdi. Trans. by M. Bonner, Leiden, 1994, pp.
1617.
major sufi concepts and institutions 315
15
Ab Nu'aym, ilya, vol. 6, p. 376.
16
Ibid., vol. 9, p. 356.
17
Al-Sarrj, Luma', p. 207.
316 chapter ten
18
M. Mol, Traits mineurs de Na[m al-Din Kubra, in Annales Islamologiques,
vol. 4 (1963), p. 25.
major sufi concepts and institutions 317
Dhikr
As was mentioned in the previous section, spiritual retreat was often
combined with intense meditation and remembrance of Gods name
(dhikr). As with many Su notions, this word is derived from the
Qur"n. Here it is mentioned on several occasions, notably in the
phrases Remind thyself (udhkur) of thy Lord when thou forgettest
(18:24) and O ye who believe! Remember (udhkur) God with much
remembrance (dhikran kathran) (33:41). In the later Su tradition,
dhikr came to denote the ritual act of reminding oneself about Gods
presence in this world. This act could be performed either in pri-
vate or at a special gathering (majlis al-dhikr). In the latter case, dhikr
approaches a ritual litany that was often accompanied by special rit-
uals, bodily movements and postures and, on occasion, an ecstatic
dance. In Susm, dhikr is possibly the most common form of prayer
that is often juxtaposed with kr, in the meaning of (discursive)
reection, meditation. In describing Muammads nocturnal ascen-
sion (mi'rj ) al-allj declares that the way to God, which runs
through the garden of dhikr, is equal to the way of intellectual
reection ( kr). This view was not shared by the majority of later
Sus, who consistently gave preference to the former over the latter.
As an ejaculatory litany tirelessly repeated by the pious practi-
tioner, dhikr exhibits many parallels with the Jesus Prayer of the
19
Qur"n 7: 141142.
20
H. Ritter, Das Meer der Seele, Leiden, 1955, pp. 1820.
318 chapter ten
21
Anawati and Gardet, Mystique musulmane, pp. 187194.
22
Ibid., pp. 208212; on this oshoot of the Khalwatiyya see Trimingham, Su
Orders, p. 77.
major sufi concepts and institutions 319
23
Gardet and Anawati, Mystique musulmane, p. 202.
320 chapter ten
syllables, the rst of which consists of the amza (i.e., the sound a)
and the second of the llh. The articulation of these syllables is
accompanied by the rhythmical raising and lowering of the head
down to the navel and back.24 Another popular formula of dhikr,
which is traced back to al-allj and his followers, elides the al in
the name of Allh, thereby reducing it to the exclamation lha, lhi,
or lhu. Al-Sans warns that this formula is to be practiced with
caution and only by those who are aware of its possible result.
The other dhikr formulae usually consist of one of Gods beautiful
names, namely Huwa, al-aqq, al-ayy, al-Qayym, al-Qahhr, and
so on.25
The duration of dhikr is regulated either by the shaykh, who pre-
sides over the session of dhikr, or, by the individual Su himself, with
or without the help of a rosary (suba). It may include varying num-
bers of repetitions, such as 300, 3,000, 6,000, 12,000, 70,000. With
time, the reciter may loose track of the number of invocations, where-
upon his dhikr may become unceasing and spontaneous.
The nature and specicity of dhikr as an individual experience
receives an exhaustive treatment in the Mift al-fal (Key to
Salvation) of Ibn 'A" Allh of Alexandria, the third Grand Master
of the Shdhil order.26 His discussion of dhikr, in turn, summarizes
the lore on this practice that was accumulated by the earlier gen-
erations of Su masters from al-Kalbdh to al-Ghazl. Most Su
writers distinguished three main stages of invocation. First, the dhikr
of the tongue with intention of the heart; the absence of the proper
intention and concentration invalidates dhikr, which becomes a sense-
less routine. At this stage, the reciter tries to implant the One who
is mentioned (i.e., God) into the heart by following closely the rules
and procedures prescribed by the shaykh. Once this has been achieved,
the recitation becomes spontaneous and continues without any eort
on the reciters part. One can still discern three elements involved
in the performance of the dhikr: the subject conscious of his experi-
ence (dhkir), the recitation (dhikr), and the One mentioned (madhkr).
After the rst stage has been passed, one enters the stage of the
dhikr of the heart. Here, according to al-Ghazl, the Su reaches
a point where he has eaced the trace of the word on his tongue;
24
Ibid., pp. 202203.
25
Ibid., p. 200.
26
Ibid., pp. 195196 and passim.
major sufi concepts and institutions 321
it is now his heart that takes over as the enunciator of dhikr. This
stage falls into two substages. At rst, the reciter has to apply his
eorts in order to make his heart articulate the prescribed formula.
This exercise may result in a pain felt in the physical heart. Sub-
sequently, the same eect is achieved without any eort, as the for-
mula becomes integrated into the beating of the physical heart.
The name of God now pulsates in unison with the pulsation of the
blood in the veins and the arteries without nding any perceptible
verbal or mental expression. This is the state of Gods necessary
presence in the heart of the reciter who becomes completely obliv-
ious of the surrounding world. This state lays the groundwork for
the third stage, that of the dhikr of the inmost heart (sirr). As the
seat of divine knowledge, the heart is best suited of all human organs
to become the arena of the direct vision of God (mushhada). Here
the experience of divine unity (tawd ) and of the unication of the
human self with the Divine Essence reaches its apogee. Su writers
often associate this third stage of dhikr with the state of spiritual per-
fection (isn) that comes on the heels of the state of external sub-
mission [to Gods will] (islm) and that of internal faith (mn). For
the Su who has attained this sublime condition, dhikr becomes the
essential part of his identity. Moreover, his whole being becomes,
sometimes against his wish, the tongue that utters dhikr. As a result,
a union between the reciter, the recitation and the One whose name
is recited, is eected. All duality disappears in the act of the volun-
tary self-annihilation of the reciter in the presence of God ( fan" 'an
al-dhkir bi- llh). The personality of the Su is thus dissolved in the all-
encompassing divine unity that no longer allows any duality within it.
Some Su manuals describe the audio and visual phenomena that
correspond to various stages of dhikr. In one such description, the
dhikr of the heart is likened to the buzzing of the bees that is
accompanied with various ocular and colored sensations. Thus, al-
Ghazl spoke of the apparition of lights, which sometimes pass
like a ash of lightning and sometimes stay, sometimes last and some-
times do not last, sometimes follow one another . . ., and sometimes
blend into a single mood. He explains them as gleams of truth
that are released by Gods good will. However, later Su authors
describe them as being intrinsically and obligatorily bound up with
the dhikr experience. They also argue that the luminous phenomena
are more resplendent at the stage of the dhikr of the innermost heart,
of which they become a characteristic feature. Here, according to
322 chapter ten
Ibn 'A" Allh al-Iskandar, the re of dhikr does not go out, and
its lights do not fail . . . You see some lights going up and others
coming down; the re around you is bright, very hot, and it burns.27
These rising and falling lights are held to be a divine illumination
which is instigated by dhikr. In this context, the dhikr of the inmost
being can be seen as liberating the divine element in the human
spirit directly (the trace of the One of Plotinus).
Su writers provide varying explanations of the place of dhikr in
Islamic spirituality. Thus al-allj and al-Kalbdh describe dhikr
as a method of reminding oneself of God and of helping the soul to
live in Gods presence. Al-Ghazl portrays dhikr as the way of the
Sus that prepares the murd for the outpourings of divine mercy.
For Ibn 'A" Allh al-Iskandar, it is not just a preparatory stage
of the mystical path, but also an eective technique that gives the
mystic direct access to the domain of divine mysteries (lht). Later
works pay more attention to the technical aspects of dhikr, such as
voice, breath control, bodily posture, and so on.
On the psychological plane, the objective of dhikr lies in instigat-
ing and sustaining monoideism, that is, a total and undivided concen-
tration of ones thoughts and aspirations on the object of recollection.
This, in turn, should lead the mystical seeker to a direct encounter
with God followed by an intuitive realization of the mysteries of
being. As time went on, certain brotherhoods sought to replace the
complicated rules and requirements of dhikr, described in classical
Su manuals, by convenient shortcuts that rested on purely physi-
cal procedures aimed at inducing altered states of conscience. As
examples of this phenomenon one can mention the ecstatic dances
of the Mawlawiyya, the pitched cries of the Howling Dervishes of
the Rif'iyya brotherhood as well as the use of stimulating and stu-
pefying drugs by some marginal Su groups. Such practices became
targets of the attacks on the Su lifestyle, teachings and practical
excesses that were launched by some nineteenth- and early-twen-
tieth century Muslim reformers, including Muammad 'Abdh and
Muammad Rashd Ri.
Sam'
This term is derived from the Arabic root s-m-' which signies the
act and process of hearing. By extension, it often denotes that which
27
Ibid., pp. 221226.
major sufi concepts and institutions 323
is being heard, for example music. The word sam' is not found in
the Qur"n, but it is often employed in pre-Islamic Arabic with the
meaning of song or musical performance. Although frequently used
in many Islamic disciplines, such as grammar and theology, it plays
a special role in Susm. Here it generally denotes the hearing of
music or audition, especially a Su spiritual concert that follows cer-
tain ritual conventions. For many Sus, sam' is the nourishment
of the soul, in other words, a devotional practice that, according
to Su authors, can induce intense emotional transports (tawjud ),
states of grace (awl ), and direct encounters with the Divine Reality
(wajd; wujd ). These may be accompanied by ecstatic behavior and
visions.
Such spiritual phenomena often nd outward expressions in move-
ments, physical agitation or dance which could be performed individ-
ually or collectively and which often follows certain ritual conventions.
The wide spread of sam' in the medieval Muslim world is richly
attested by Persian miniatures that depict the various forms it took
in dierent epochs and geographical areas.
On the theoretical level, the term sam' implies more than a sim-
ple hearing of poetry or music, accompanied by a dance or other
bodily movements. It refers rst and foremost to the understanding,
comprehension and acceptance of the Revelation by its practition-
ers. Not just a simple ecstasy or rapture, it is described by some Su
authors as an unveiling of mysteries and a means of attaining a
higher spiritual state and awareness.
Sam' in the Su sense of the term did not appear until the mid-
dle of the third/ninth century. Registered for the rst time among
the Sus of Baghdad, its origins in the ecstatic rites and practices
of the earlier Middle Eastern religions cannot be ascertained. Within
Islam, sam' can be seen as a natural development of the devotional
practices associated with the public recitation of the Qur"n. Its sub-
sequent development was determined, in part, by the secular con-
certs (arab) and artistic declamations of secular poetry which were
cultivated by the caliph and by provincial rulers in Ifahn, Shrz
and Khursn. Initially, sam' appears to have been an oriental
phenomenon which was promulgated by the Persian disciples of al-
Nr and of al-Junayd. By the same token, almost all of the early
writers on sam' were Persians, with the exception of Ab lib
Muammad al-Makk (d. 386/996). Subsequently, sam' spread to
the other areas of the Muslim world and found an eager and enthu-
siastic acceptance among Arab, Turkish and Indian Sus. The rst
324 chapter ten
28
Baldick, Mystical Islam, p. 20.
GENERAL CONCLUSION
1
See, e.g., the works by I. Shah; cf. J. Fadiman, Essential Susm, San Francisco,
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GENERAL INDEX
al-Bakr, Kaml al-Dn Muaf, 266, British colonialism, 233, 256, 259,
267, 268, 270 260, 263, 280, 297
al-Bakr family, 188 Buddhism, 74, 205, 206, 245
Bakriyya, 267, 269 Bukhr, 57, 123, 204, 218, 220,
Bk, 264 222, 223, 225, 226, 236, 281
Baldick, J., 3, 47 Bukhr, Fard 231
Baldwin (king of Jerusalem), 194 Bukhr, Muammad Murd, 226
Blim Suln, 277, 278 Bukhr, Sayyid Jall [al-Dn], 204,
Balkans, 217, 226, 245, 255, 267, 205, 206, 282
275, 276, 279 Bulgaria, 267
Balkh, 19, 106, 156 Bulliet, R., 98
Bamba, Amad, 262, 263 Burhn al-Dn Muaqqiq, Sayyid, 156
Bangala, 204 Burhniyya, 174
Bangladesh, 240 al-Burnus, Amad, 214. See also
Bq Bi-llh, Khwja, 229, 233, [al-Zarrq], Amad
283 Bursa, 225
Bqiyya, 271 B-Zd ( Bzd), 248
Baqqra (tribesmen), 259 B-Zdiyya (Bzdiyya), 216, 248
al-Barbahr, 85 Byzantium, 20, 32
Barkyrq (sultan), 142
Baraytinskii (prince), 291, 293 Cairo, 178, 213, 265, 179
Barzishabd, 'Abd Allh, 238 Camus, J.-P., 32
Bara, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, Caspian See, 224
26, 27, 36, 38, 43, 48, 50, 72, 73, Casablanca, 247
84, 85, 102, 105, 118, 119; ascetic Caucasus, 3, 233, 245, 258, 284,
and mystical movement in, 49, 51, 289300
61, 66, 82, 83, 87, 121 Central Asia, 32, 74, 81, 99, 118, 162,
al-Bar. See al-asan al-Bar. 220, 222, 225, 227, 234, 238, 239,
Bay b. Sd 'Umar, Sd, 261 245, 272, 289. See also Transoxania;
Byazd II (sultan), 265, 277 Turkestan; Tajikistan; Kazakhstan,
al-Bayw, 287 Uzbekistan
Byqar, Mrz usayn, 162, 222 Central Sahara. See Sahara
Bayram, jj, 274 Ceuta, 208
Bayramiyya, 27475 Chabbi, J., 47, 183
Beirut, 271 Chad, 255, 262, 263
Bektsh, jj Wal, 277, 278 Chk dynasty, 206
Bektshiyya, 27780 Charkh, Khwja Muammad, 220
Bengal, 200, 282, 283 Charouin, 191
Bennigsen, A., 299 Chechens, 233, 289, 293, 295, 297,
Bennigsen-Broxup, M., 299 298
Berbers, 247, 260, 297 Chechnya, 290, 291, 292, 293, 300
Berke Khn, 237 Cheleb Efend, 267. See also
Beshr Agha, 276 al-Aqsar", Memed
Bb Zulaykha, 281 Cheleb, Mamd Lmi', 225
Bihr, 281, 282 Cherkesh Muaf, 266
Bihbahn, 242 Cherkeshiyya, 266
Bishr al-f, 18, 49, 51, 57, 132 Chimkent, 272
Bism, 69, 120, 136 China, 154, 174, 217, 238, 245
al-Bism. See Ab Yazd al-Bism Chirgh-i Dilh, 205, 282
Biyr, 91 al-Chisht, Mu'n al-Dn, 196, 204,
Bonner, M., 20 281
Bornu, 254 Chishtiyya, 188, 196, 200, 204, 205,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, 267, 275, 276 207, 280, 281, 282, 284, 324; and
Britain, 248, 293 Naqshbandiyya, 232
338 general index
Companions [of prophet Muammad], Egypt, 5, 39, 40, 66, 113, 125, 173,
5, 10, 12, 21, 94, 119, 126, 128, 174, 178, 185, 189, 190, 199, 207,
270 209, 212, 213, 214, 217, 234, 239,
Constantinople, 239 250, 251, 253, 257, 259, 260, 265,
Coppolani, X., 188 267, 271, 273
Cordoba, 113 Enlightenment, 1
Crimean War, 292, 293 Ephraem the Syrian, 17
Crusaders, 193 Eritrea, 251, 255
Cyrenaica, 250 Ess, J. van, 47
Ethiopia, 249, 251, 255, 256, 259,
al-Dabbs, Ab l-Khayr ammd, 267, 271
179, 180, 193 Europe, 2, 144, 173, 247, 296, 300
Dghestn, 233, 289, 290, 291, 294, Eyyb, 225, 226
295, 297
Damascus, 32, 39, 85, 86, 142, 157, Fakhr al-Mulk (son of Nim al-Mulk),
162, 165, 169, 193, 194, 226, 265, 142
267, 271, 273, 294 Fakhriyya, 281
Damietta, 273 Faleme, 254
Dandarwiyya, 251 al-Frb, 144
al-Drn. See Ab Sulaymn al-Drn [al-]Frmad. See Ab 'Al
Drghiyya, 290, 293 [al-]Frmadh
al-Darqw, al-'Arab, 216, 248, 252 Farqad al-Sabakh, 13, 14, 49
Darqwiyya ( Darqwa), 214, 248, 249, Fars, 72
318 al-Fs, 'Al b. Maymn, 214
Dasht-i Kipchaq, 272 Fima (daughter of the prophet
Dasqiyya, 214 Muammad), 209, 238
Dwd al-", 13, 24, 48 Fima al-Yashriyya, 216
[al-]Dya. See Najm al-Dn [Dya] Fay Allh Efend, 226
al-Rz Fayiyya, 267
Deccan, 239, 241, 281, 282 Fez, 187, 208, 241, 216, 247, 250
Dede-Bba, 277 Firdawsiyya, 237, 281, 282, 285
Delhi, 162, 182, 204, 205, 206, 227, al-Ftr, 'Abd al-Salm, 252
229, 281, 282, 284 dan Fdio, 'Uthmn b. Muammad, 262
Demavend (Dumbawand), 64 France, 248, 293
Demirdshiyya, 265 French colonialism, 261, 262, 263,
Depont, O., 188 296, 297
Detroit, 279 Freytag (general), 291
Dhahabiyya, 238 Fuayl b. 'Iy, 2324, 25, 34, 36, 40,
Dhu l-Nn al-Mir, 4041, 43, 57, 47, 50, 183
69, 84, 124, 132, 303, 315, 324 Fulani tribe, 254, 262
Diakanke tribe, 188 Fulbe, 249, 261
Dihlaw, Ghulm 'Al. See Ghulm 'Al Fus (Old Cairo), 57, 91
Shh Futa Toro, 254
[al-]Dil" (zwiyya), 215, 246
Dngiray, 254 Gammer, M., 297, 298
iy" al-Dn Ysuf, 222 Gardet, L. 3
Djawnpr, 283 Garnett, L. 189
Dome of the Rock, 90 Genawa. See Gnwa
Dongola, 257, 260 George XII (tsar), 292
Dudaev (president), 298 Ghana, 255
Dur (village), 224 Gharb, Burhn al-Dn, 282
Ghawth, Muammad, 283, 285
Eastern Turkestan. See Turkestan al-Ghazl, Amad, 140, 154, 193,
Edirne, 265 203
general index 339
Herat, 136, 137, 138, 161, 162, 220, Ibn 'A" Allh al-Iskandar
222, 223, 224, 240, 241 (al-Sikandar), 208, 212, 213, 320,
dHerbelot, 82 322
al-ifn, Muammad b. Slim, 267 Ibn Bds, 248
ijz, 10, 40, 125, 128, 130, 140, Ibn al-Bann, 128
162, 164, 212, 247, 250, 255, 287 Ibn Barrajn, 115, 246
al-illa, 261 Ibn Baa, 205, 219
Hindi language, 205 Ibn Bb, 200
Hinduism, 74, 230, 231, 232, 234, Ibn al-Fri, 163, 171, 197, 287
285 Ibn Fd. See dan Fdio, 'Uthmn b.
Hindus, 206, 283. See also Indians Muammad
Hodgson, M.G.S., 157 Ibn Frak, 130
Hd, Shaykh, 204 Ibn Furt, 75, 78
udhayfa b. al-Yaman, 5 Ibn amdn, 75
Hujwr, 133 Ibn anbal. See Amad b. Hanbl
al-Hujwr, al-Jullb, 72, 81, 93, 96, Ibn irzihim, 246
118, 132135, 305, 306, 307, 313 Ibn Hd, 173
ulmniyya, 85, 274 Ibn Idrs. See Amad b. Idrs
al-imaythira, 209 Ibn 's (vizier), 75
Humyn (emperor), 206, 229, 283 Ibn 'Iyd (Ibn 'Ayyd), 208
uryya, 275, 280 Ibn al-Jawz, 6, 138
usm al-Dn asan, 158, 159, 282 Ibn Karrm, 8892; and Malmatiyya,
usmiyya, 281 95
usayn Astrbd, Sayyid, 242 Ibn Khaff [al-]Shrz, 79, 87, 118,
usayn Byqar. See Byqar, usayn 138, 195
usayn usayn, Sayyid, 243 Ibn Kullb, 53
Ibn Manda, 128
Ibls, 109, 154; in the teaching of Ibn Masarra al-Jabal, 11315
al-allj, 76, 80; in the teaching of Ibn Mashsh, 208, 246
al-akm al-Tirmidh, 108110. Ibn al-Mubrak, 18, 2122, 24, 25,
See also Satan 32, 33, 50, 51, 129
Ibn 'Abbd al-Rund, 45, 213 Ibn Mujhid, 76
Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhb, Muammad, Ibn Nujayd. See Ism'l b. Nujayd
138, 258 Ibn Qas, 115
Ibn Ab l-Duny, 324 Ibn al-Sabbgh, 208
Ibn Ab l-Hawr. See Amad b. Ab Ibn Sab'n, 173
l-awr Ibn Slim. See Muammad b. Slim
Ibn Adham. See Ibrhm b. Adham Ibn Sawwr, 84
Ibn 'Ajba, 213, 216 Ibn Sn, 144, 147
Ibn [al-]'Arab, 45, 59, 82, 105, 113, Ibn Srn, 15
147, 16368, 169, 173, 186, 197, Ibn Surayj, 75
261, 266, 287, 288 307, 308, 317; Ibn hir al-Muqaddas al-Qaysarn,
discursive method of, 16768; and 127
wadat al-wujd, 168, 205, 240, 237, Ibn Taymiyya, 138, 170, 176, 181,
240, 276, 286; and African orders, 185, 187
252; and 'Alawiyya, 248; and Ibrhm (son of 'Abd al-Qdir
Khalwatiyya, 266, 268; and al-Jln), 187
Naqshbandiyya, 221, 222, 229, 232, Ibrhm Niasse, 255
233, 284; and Shdhiliyya, 210, Ibrhm b. Adham, 18, 1920, 21, 24,
217 32,33, 34, 50, 51, 60, 132
Ibn al-'Arf, 115, 246 Ibrhmiyya, 267
Ibn 'Askir, 194 Ichkeria, 298
Ibn al-Ash'ath, 11 Idaw 'Al, 253
Ibn 'A", 77, 124, 126 Idrsiyya, 214, 288
general index 341
Ifrqiya, 208, 209, 212, 215 'Izz al-Dn Mamd b. 'Al-i Kshn,
al-j, 'Ad al-Dn, 239 201
Ikhliyya tekke, 268 'Izzet Moll, Kechej-zde, 227
Ikhmm (Akhmm), 40
Ilh, 'Abd Allh Mull, 225 Jacob (Ya'qb), 306
lkhnids, 237 Ja'far al-Khuld, 25, 26, 117, 118,
Iltutmish (sultan), 206 119, 129
'Imrn b. al-usayn al-Khuz', 5 Ja'far al-diq (Sh' imm), 218
India, 74, 99, 185, 187, 190, 200, Jahngr (emperor), 231, 283
204, 206, 207, 226, 229, 230, 231, al-Ji, 11, 27
232, 234, 237, 241, 245, 274, 280, Jainism, 230
281, 283, 284, 285, 318. See also al-Jakn, Muammad al-Khair, 264
Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent; Jall al-Dn Tabrz, 200
Pakistan Jm, 161
Indians, 18 Jamliyya, 265
Indonesia, 188, 207, 217, 255, 271, Jm, 'Abd al-Raman, 40, 41, 138,
28688 151, 16163, 171, 222, 223, 286
Iran, 1, 10, 49, 74, 84, 124, 128, 153, Jm, Khwja Muammad Ysuf, 224
204, 273, 238, 289. See also Persia; Janissaries, 278, 279
Khursn; Shrz; Fars Jarriyya, 268
Iranian [Islamic] Revolution, 224, 240, Java, 287
243, 244 al-Jazl, Muammad, 214, 247, 248,
Iraq, 5, 7, 10, 11, 15, 30, 34, 38, 48, 250
50, 51, 66, 73, 74,78, 84, 87, 96, Jazliyya, 249
97, 101, 102, 105, 114, 118, 123, Jerusalem, 57, 88, 89, 90, 91, 142, 193
125, 133, 140, 164, 180, 187, 188, Jesus ('s), 15, 260, 308,
207, 208, 224, 239, 255, 273 Jesus Prayer, 317
'Irq, Fakhr al-Dn, 204, 207, 274 Jibl (province in Iran), 193, 195
Irbl, 228 al-Jigitbsh, Amad Shams al-Dn
's. See Jesus b. 's, 268
's b. ab al-Mudrr, 16 Jilla. See Jilliyya
Isaac of Nineveh, 17 Jilliyya ( Jilla), 186, 189, 190.
'swa. See 'swiyya See also Qdiriyya
'swiyya ('swa), 214, 215, 217, 248, John of Ephesus, 17
249, 253 Jordan, 216
Ifahn, 128, 193, 241, 242, 323 Jdiyya, 270
Isfarin, 130 al-Junayd al-Baghdd, 47, 48, 51,
Iskandar Muda, 286 5256, 60, 64, 66, 67, 71, 84, 87,
Islamic Revolution. See Iranian 100, 104, 117, 118, 121, 124, 125,
[Islamic] Revolution 126, 132, 133, 138, 139, 183, 236,
Ism'l (vice-roy of Egypt), 294 307, 309, 310, 323; and sober
Ism'l al-Qar, 234 Susm, 5354, 63, 64, 82, 120, 135,
Ism'l Rm, 187, 189 268; and al-allj, 54, 55, 73;
Ism'l al-Shm, 51 mystical language of, 5354, 55, 56,
Ism'l b. Ja'far (Sh' imm), 238 63, 65, 100; concept of mystical
Ism'l b. Nujayd, 125, 127 union in teaching of, 5456, 72;
Ism'ls(m), 73, 141, 202, 239, 314; and religio-political authorities,
and Ibn Masarra, 114; al-Ghazls 5556, 62; and al-Bism, 71, 80;
criticism of, 143, 145, 148 and al-Kharrz, 57, 58, 59; and
Istanbul, 162, 182, 187, 222, 223, 225, Malmatiyya, 96; and al-Nr, 60,
226, 227, 228, 265, 267, 268, 274, 61, 62, 63
276 al-Jurayr, 56, 66, 84
Istighthiyya, 237 Jurjn, 91, 140
Italians, 256, 263 al-Juwayn, 140, 144, 145, 148
342 general index
Libya, 251, 252, 255, 258, 262, 263, Manr, Amad Yay, 237, 282, 285
319 Manichaeism, 74, 169
Lobbo, Amad, 262 Marnids, 214, 215
Louis IX (Saint Louis), 32 Marrakesh, 214
Luf Pasha (vizier), 265 Ma'rf al-Karkh, 4849, 50, 51, 183
Marxism, 250
M" al-'Aynayn, 252, 263 Maryam al-Bariyya, 27
Macedonia, 270, 276 al-Marzbaniyya (rib), 197
Madriyya, 280, 281 Masina, 254, 262
Magiansim (majsiyya), 100. [Free] Masons, 244, 296
See also Zoroastrianism Massignon, L., 80, 82
Maghnisa, 268 Mast 'Al Shh, Zayn al-'bidn, 242,
Maghrib, 164, 188, 190, 207, 208, 243
213, 214, 216, 245, 246, 247, 249, Ma'm, Muammad Murd, 226,
252 231, 232
Maghribiyya, 284 Ma'm 'Al Shh Dakkn, 241, 242
Mahbd, 225 Mauritania, 253, 255, 260, 263, 264
Mhn, 240 Mawlawiyya, 158, 226, 228, 322, 324
al-Mahd (caliph), 18 Mawly Rashd (sultan), 247
al-Mahd, 'Abd al-Ramn, 263 Mazdaqn, Mamd, 237
Mahd of the Sdn, 255, 25760, Mahar Jn-i Jnn, Mrz, 232, 233,
263 234, 283
Mahdiyya, 25960 Mahariyya, 281
Mahmashdh, 91 Mecca, 21, 57, 58, 69, 73, 74, 88,
Mamd II (sultan), 226, 227, 279 105, 114, 117, 121, 125, 140, 142,
Mamd Amad, 260 164, 179, 187, 188, 197, 209, 226,
Mamd Subuktegin, 128 239, 253, 255, 267, 268, 276, 294
al-Majb, 'Abd al-Ramn, 213 Medina, 10, 140, 142, 254, 258, 287,
Majbiyya-Shdhiliyya, 262 294
Majlis, Muammad Bqir, 223 Memed Esad. See Muammad As'ad
Majnn and Layl, 162 Meier, F., 2
Makhdm-i Jahniyn. See Bukhr, Men'a, 191
Jall [al-Dn] Menzel Bouzelfa (Cape Bon), 212
al-Makk. See Ab lib al-Makk Merv (Marv), 49, 100, 125, 130, 218
Maktadr, 'Al" al-Dn, 223 Meshhed, 140, 153, 162, 242
Malmatiyya, 7, 9499, 125, 127, 132, Mesopotamia, 1
134, 274, 275, 276, 277; and Middle East, 1, 2, 224, 271
futuwwa, 9798; and Karrmiyya, 95; Mn"iyya, 281
and yya, 96, 99, 101 Mr Dard, Khwja, 233
Malaya, 196 Mr Nir, Khwja, 233, 283
Malay language and literature, 172, al-Mrghn, 'Al, 263
216, 287 al-Mrghn, Muammad 'Uthmn,
Malaysia, 188, 251 251, 255
Mali, 251, 252, 260, 262 Mrmrn, Amr Ghiyth al-Dn, 241
Mlik b. Anas (founder of Mlik Miyn Mr, 282
school of law), 40, 50 Mogadishu, 255
Mlik b. Dnr, 13, 14, 15, 26, 38 Mogul dynasty, 230
Mlikism (Mlik school of law), 40, Mol, M., 3
50, 64, 78; in al-Andalus, 114; and Monastir, 276
Slimiyya, 86, 87; and Susm, 209 Mongols, 88, 92, 152, 173, 184, 203,
Mamlks, 173, 174 235, 237, 271, 272
al-Ma"mn (caliph), 40 Morocco, 185, 186, 187, 189, 208,
al-Ma"mniyya (Su lodge), 204 212, 214, 215, 246, 247, 248, 249,
Mandu, 281, 283 250, 253
344 general index
l; pl. awl (mystical state; ecstasy), kalimt-i qudsiyya (eight chief principles
40, 54, 30306, 323 of the Naqshband Su order),
aqqa (ultimate goal and nal stage of 220
the mystical path to God), 30102, karmt (supernatural deeds or feats
312 of a saint; saintly miracles), 221
al-aqqa al-muammadiyya (primordial kashf (mystical insight; unveiling of
and eternal reality of the prophet divine mysteries), 163, 209, 302,
Muammad), 252 31114
al-aqq (the True Reality; the Real, kashkl (beggars bowl), 173
God), 70 khalfa (successor or deputy of a
ay" (shame; decency), 52 renowned Su master), 158, 186,
hayba (reverence; awe [of God]), 52 204, 205, 223, 224, 253, 265, 267,
hidya (right guidance), 111 294
izb; pl. azb (litany of a Su order), khalwa (spiritual retreat; seclusion;
190, 211, 318, 319 voluntary withdrawal from society
ull (Gods dwelling in a human body; for pious exercises and meditation),
incarnation of God in man), 78, 79, 170, 175, 186, 187, 190, 255, 268,
129 269, 31417
khnaq (Su lodge; monastery; hostel
ikhl (sincerity), 51, 57, 30609, 315 for travelers), 90, 91, 99, 138, 142,
'ilm (traditional or rational knowledge 148, 161, 174, 192, 205, 212, 229,
as opposed to intuitive, supersensory 233, 235, 236, 237, 273, 281, 284,
perception), 105 285
'ilm al-bin (internal, esoteric al-kha (spiritual elite; accomplished
knowledge), 16, 17, 113 Sus), 120
'ilm al-arq (science pertaining to the khawf (fear of God), 45
mystical path), 34 khirqa (Su robe), 72, 125, 173, 177,
'ilm al-taawwuf (Su science), 10, 56, 184, 193, 275, 281
116, 125, 132 khulla (friendship [with God]), 19
'ilm al-tawd (knowledge of Gods khuml (humility), 51
oneness; the ultimate knowledge of khwjagn (title of some Su masters of
God), 54 Transoxania), 218, 219, 280
'ilm al-hir (external knowledge), 17 kun (be!; Gods creative command; at),
imm ([prayer] leader), 13, 207 108
'ishq (desire; passion for God), 61, 79
isnd (chain of authorities conrming lht (divine nature; domain of Gods
the authenticity of a given report or mystery), 79, 322. Cf. nst
statement), 129 la"if (subtle centers [of the human
thr (altruism; giving preference to body]), 235, 237
others over ones own self ), 12, 98.
See also futuwwa madrasa (religious college), 130, 141,
ittid (union between God and a 180, 184, 191, 193, 245
human being), 56, 79 maabba (love [of God]), 30, 79, 97,
305
jam' (underlying unity of all created mahd (messiah; divinely guided
beings; joining with God), 54, 79, 309 world-restorer), 105, 247, 257
jihd (self-exertion; striving on the path maktbt (recorded teachings of a
of God; holy war), 6, 18, 19, 21, famous Su master), 232, 284
25, 37, 50, 181, 254, 256, 259, 261, malft (oral teachings and precepts of
293, 294, 298, 300, 316. See also a famous Su master), 232
mujhada manzil (dwelling stations or abodes on
the mystical path), 34, 37, 107, 304
kalm (speculative theology; rationalist maqm pl. maqmt (stations of the
discourse), 87, 106, 122, 196, 234, mystical path), 40, 41, 132, 269,
289, 303 302, 30306
356 index of terms
shaykh al-uruq (grand master of the tekke or tekiya (Su logde), 187, 225, 226,
Su orders [in Mecca]), 188 228, 267, 268, 270, 271, 276, 277,
iddqn (veracious ones; accomplished 279. See also khnaq; zwiyya; rib
Su masters), 106, 112, 313 uruq. See arqa
sidq (truthfulness; sincerity), 41, 42, 57,
195, 30609 'ubbd (pious worshipers), 6
silsila (spiritual genealogy of a Su ulema or 'ulam" ([Muslim] scholars; the
master of a Su community), 13, learned), 14, 24, 72, 86, 87, 116,
175, 203, 218, 220, 229, 262, 265, 117, 119, 136, 141, 146, 148, 149,
268, 280, 288 165, 170, 209, 222, 226, 227, 242,
f (wool), 5, 15 275, 289, 290, 296
f (wool-wearer; Su), 5, 15. umma (Muslim community), 258
See also mutaawwif uns (intimacy or friendship with God),
yya (wool-people; Sus), 7, 39 52
sulk (Su way), 303. See also tariqa 'uzla or i'tizl (seclusion; lesser retreat
[in the Khalwati tradition]), 268,
abaqt (generations or classes of 269, 314
individuals belonging to a religious
group or a professional guild), 117 wadniyya (uniqueness of God), 202
tbi'n (the generation of early Muslims wadat al-shuhd ([doctrine of ] the unity
who came after that of the or oneness of witnessing), 230, 284,
Prophets companions), 10 285
tadls (bbing [in adth]), 12 wadat al-wujd ([doctrine of ]the unity
tafrq(a) (dispersion; plurality of the or oneness of being), 168, 169, 205,
empirical world), 54, 309. Cf. jam' 230, 232, 233, 237, 268, 286,
tajall (self-revelation of God; epiphany), 287
31, 190, 312 wajd (ecstasy occasioned by direct
talwn (inconstancy of a spiritual state encounter with the Divine Reality),
or sensation), 306 170, 303, 323
tamkn (xity or steadiness of a mystical walya (friendship with God;
state), 134, 304, 306 sainthood), 14. See also wilya
taqashshuf (mortication of the esh; wal; pl. awliy" (friend of God; saint),
asceticism), 88 17, 208. See also awliy"
arqa; pl. uruq or ar"iq (method of waqt (mystical moment; a eeting
spiritual education practiced by a mystical state or experience), 304,
Su master; Su order), 1, 2, 149, 30506
172, 177, 185, 187, 188, 191, 198, wara' (scrupulousness in discerning
199, 205, 207, 208, 211, 216, 217, between the permitted and the
246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 254, 255, prohibited), 33
262, 263, 266, 267, 268, 270, 272, wal (union [with God]), 31
274, 277, 280, 288, 294, 297, 298, wilya (friendship with God; sainthood),
299, 30103, 308 81, 132, 306. See also walya
tarqa-yi Muammad (path of the wird; pl. awrd (ritual litany of a Su
prophet Muammad; method of order), 176, 185, 199, 318, 319
spiritual training in later Susm), wujd (being; existence; discovery of
233, 280, 283 the Divine Reality), 202, 286, 323
taawwuf (Susm), 5, 48, 198, 199
tawahhum (pious meditation on the zhid; pl. zuhhd (ascetic; world
events of the Last Day), 46 renouncer), 89
tawakkul (trust in God; reliance on God), hir (exoteric knowledge; outward
23, 33, 34, 36, 41, 46, 51, 89, 98 aspect of revelation). Cf. bin
tawba (repentance; return to God), 107 zwiyya (Su lodge; cloister), 174, 187,
tawd (ultimate realization of Gods 188, 189, 215, 245, 246, 247, 253,
unity and oneness), 62, 122, 137, 255, 261, 271, 273, 278, 279. See
303, 307, 321 also khnaq; rib; tekke
358 index of terms