SUFISM.  

One of the truly creative manifestations of religious life in Islam is the mystical tradition, known as Sufism. The term derives most probably from the Arabic word for wool (suf), since the early ascetics of Islam (Sufis) are said to have worn coarse woolen garments to symbolize their rejection of the world.

Origins.

Muslim mystical writers such as Abu Bakr al-Kalabadhi (d. 990/5) and 'All al-Hujwiri (d. 1071/2?), none­theless, have proposed a number of etymologies for Sufi: şaff, "rank," implying that Suns are an elite group among Muslims; şuffah, "bench," alluding to the People of the Bench, the intimates of the prophet Mu­hammad who gathered at the first mosque in Medina; şafâ’ "purity," focusing on the moral uprightness es­sential to the Sufi way of life. The resolution of the etymological debate is less critical than the recognition that the terms Sufi and Sufism evoke complex layers of meaning in Islam, including the denial of the world, close association with the Prophet and his message, and a spiritual attainment that raises one to a rank of unique intimacy with God.

Some earlier Western scholars of Sufism concluded that mysticism is incompatible with the Muslim per­ception of an almighty, transcendent God with whom one shares little intimacy. In their opinion Sufi mysticism was born of Islam's contact with other major world religions, especially Christianity and Buddhism. This theory is no longer considered viable for two reasons: first, the Qur'anic perception of the relationship of the individual to God is quite complex, highlighting both immanence and transcendence, and second, while no one denies that Islam evolved in a religiously pluralistic environment, one need not conclude that phe­nomena common to both Islam and other traditions are therefore derivative.

The vision of the God-man relationship in the Qur'an offers a study in contrasts. On the one hand God is the almighty creator and lord of the cosmos who sustains the universe at every moment (Qur'an 10:3 ff.); men and women are but servants—finite, vulnerable, and prone to evil (2:30 ff. and 15:26 ff.). God is both lawgiver and judge (surahs 81 and 82); whatever he wills comes to be (2:142; 3:47; 3:129; 5:40; 13:27). Servants of God are en­joined to embrace his will, not question its import, for men and women will be rewarded or punished according to their deeds. To breach the lord-servant (rabb-'abd) relationship leads easily to the cardinal sin of shirk, substituting some other power for that of God.

On the other hand the inaccessibility of the transcendent Lord must be understood in the context of those Qur'anic verses that speak of his abiding presence both in the world and in the hearts of the faithful. For did he not actually breathe his own spirit into Adam at creation (Qur'an 15:29, 38:72)? And is he not closer to hu­mankind than his own jugular vein (50:16)? God's pres­ence is all-pervasive, for to him belong the East and the West, the whole of creation,

. . . and wherever you turn, there is God's face. Truly God is omnipresent, omniscient. (2:115)

The Qur'an enjoins on every Muslim the practice of recollecting God (33:41), for the peaceful heart is one in which the remembrance of God has become second nature (13:28-29). The most crucial Qur'anic verse for Sufis, however, describes the establishment of the pri­mordial covenant between God and the souls of men and women in a time before the creation of the cosmos:

And when your Lord took from the loins of the children of Adam their seed and made them testify about themselves (by saying), "Am I not your Lord?" They replied, "Yes, truly, we testify!" (7:172)

This unique event, which confirms the union between God and the souls of all men and women, has become known in Sufi literature as the "Day of Alast," the day when God asked "Alastu bi-rabbikum" ("Am I not your Lord?"). The goal of every Muslim mystic is to recap­ture this experience of loving intimacy with the Lord of the Worlds.

The experience of mystical union need not, therefore, be seen as foreign to Islam. On the contrary, interior spiritual development becomes a concern at a relatively early date in the writings of important Qur'an commen­tators. Of the two traditional methods of Qur'anic exe­gesis predominating in Islam, tafsir emphasizes the ex­oteric elements of the text: grammar, philology, history, dogma, and the like, while ta'will stresses the search for hidden meanings, the esoteric dimensions of the Qur'anic text. It is among Sufis (and Shi'i Muslims) that ta'will has found special favor.

Early commentators such as Muqâtil ibn Sulaymân (d. 767) often combined literalist and allegorical meth­ods depending on the nature of the verse in question. More important is the contribution of the sixth imam of the Shi'ah, Ja'far al-Sadiq (d. 765), who stressed not only the formal learning of the commentator but also his spiritual development. An individual's access to the deeper meanings of the Qur'an is dependent, therefore, on his or her personal spiritual development. Since text and commentator interact dynamically as living reali­ties, the Qur'an reveals more of itself to the extent that the Muslim makes progress in the spiritual life. The power of the text is such that for many later Sufi com­mentators such as Sahl al-Tustari (d. 896) simply hear­ing the recitation of the sacred text could induce ec­static states in the soul of the listener.

The Ascetic Movement. The early catalysts for the de­velopment of mysticism in Islam, however, were not all spiritual in nature. The dramatic social and political changes brought about by the establishment of the Umayyad dynasty in the mid-seventh century also played a pivotal role. The capital of the empire was moved from Medina to the more opulent and cosmopol­itan Damascus, and the rapid spread of Islam intro­duced enormous wealth and ethnic diversity into what had originally been a spartan, Arab movement. In reaction to the worldliness of the Umayyads, individual ascetics arose to preach a return to the heroic values of the Qur'an through the abandonment of both riches and the trappings of earthly power. The three major centers of the ascetic movement in the eighth and ninth centu­ries were Iraq, especially the cities of Basra, Kufa, and Baghdad; the province of Khorasan, especially the city of Balkh; and Egypt.

Mystical Literature

The science of opposites, with its rich symbolism and provocative speculation, appealed only to a small num­ber of Sufis because of the level of intellectual sophisti­cation it demanded and because of its esoteric quality. In contrast, beginning in the late ninth century, a num­ber of texts began to appear that were aimed at a broader spectrum of the Muslim faithful and functioned as training guides for men and women interested in cul­tivating mystical experience.

The Manual Tradition. The emphasis of the manuals was not on the arcane dimensions of Sufism, but on its accessibility and its conformity with Islamic orthodoxy.

One of the earliest manuals addressed to a Sufi novice is the Kitab al-ri'ayah (Book of Consideration) of Abu 'Abd Allah Hârith ibn Asad al-Muhâsibi (d. 857). He is remembered particularly for his skill in developing the examination of conscience as an effective tool for ad­vancement in the spiritual life.

Among the classics of this genre of religious literature in Sufism are the Kitâb al-ta ‘arruf (Book of Knowledge) of Abu Bakr Muhammad al-Kalabadhi (d. 990 or 995), the Kitâb al-luma' (Book of Concise Remarks) of Abu Nasr 'Abd Allah ibn 'All al-Sarraj (d. 988), Al-risalah al-qushayriyah (The Qushayrian Letter) of Abu al-Qâsim ‘Abd al-Karim al-Qushayri (d. 1074), the Kashf al-mahjûb (Unveiling of the Veiled) of 'All ibn 'Uthman al-Jullabi al-Hujwîrî (d. 1071/2?), and the Qut al-qulûb (Nourishment of the Heart) of Abu Tâlib Muhammad ibn 'Alî ibn 'Atîyah al-Harithî al-Makkî (d. 996).

Spiritual guidance. Doubtless the primary goal of these manuals was to serve as guides for novices newly embarked upon the Sufi path. The literary structure re­flected this; often the conceit was that of the master writing to. or answering the questions of, a particular disciple. The internal composition of the texts varies considerably from one author to the next. Some are col­lections of insights strung together like random pearls; others, such as the Kashf al-mahjub of al-Hujwîrî, pre­sent a coherent and systematic analysis of Sufism.

Earlier Sufis had relied heavily on the personal rela­tionship of master (shaykh, pir) with disciple (murid, talib) to provide the guidance necessary for spiritual progress. But as the number both of disciples and of fa­mous shaykhs increased, written manuals became in­valuable supplements to personal spiritual direction. The manuals preserved the teachings of many of the greatest Sun guides and made their wisdom available to a larger number of the brethren. While Sufi manuals never supplanted the master-disciple relationship, they did attain a permanent place of influence and honor among Muslim mystics.

In addition to providing spiritual guidance, the Sufi manuals also addressed a number of subsidiary issues of critical importance. The first was the need to legiti­mize the place of Sufism in the broader spectrum of Islamic religious life. To this end authors such as al-Kalabadhi and al-Qushayri made deliberate efforts to demonstrate that Sufism was in conformity with the orthodox theological synthesis, namely Ash'arism. Al-Sarraj as well took pains to prove that Sufism was completely in tune with the Qur'an, hadlth, and Islamic legal tradition (shari’ah).

A further cause of heightened tension between Sufis and the champions of orthodoxy concerned the possible conflict between the roles of Sufi saint and traditional prophet. Sunni Islam presumed that prophet hood was the pinnacle of spiritual perfection, exemplified by Mu­hammad himself. To substantiate this claim, Muslim theology asserted that all prophets possessed the special gift of impeccability (‘ismah); each had the power, moreover, to perform a unique miracle (mu'jizah) in order to verify his mission. ¹

Some Sufis, on the other hand, suggested that saint­hood was an even more elevated spiritual rank than prophet hood because it presumed a unique intimacy with the divine. Most manual writers, however, evolved a less polemical stance, one designed to reinforce the mainstream character of Sufism. They concluded that the highest level of sainthood was only the first level of prophet hood. While the prophet was impeccable from birth, the saint was only protected (mahfûz) from com­mitting serious sin, and this only after he or she had attained sainthood. Whereas the miracles of the proph­ets were unique and indisputable, the miracles of the saints (karâmât) were repeatable and subject to satanic influence.

A common objective of all the Sûfî manuals is to an­alyze in depth the various stages and states that make up the Sufi path. Stages are considered by spiritual

writers to be levels of permanent growth in the mystical life; states represent the more transient emotional and psychological experiences associated with the various stages. The process of scrutinizing in analytic fashion the stages and states of mystical experience resulted in the creation of a sophisticated technical vocabulary that provided a basis for common discourse among Sufis of every generation.

The exploration of the stages and states of mystical experience resulted, as well. in the development of I highly refined theories of spiritual psychology. Sufi psy-r chologists aimed first and foremost at providing train­ees with the means to gain control over the nafs, or lower soul (see surah 12:53), which was identified as the satanic element within men and women. Al-Makkî de­scribes the nafs as arrogant, deceptive, envious, a beast that wallows in excess.

The Sufi novice was not helpless, however, in his con­frontation with the nafs. Men and women possessed an angelic force (malak) sent by God to do battle with the nafs in the arena of the heart (qalb). As al-Muhâsibi in­dicates, both malak and nafs employ similar weapons, notably the various internal impulses (khawâtir) that arise in the heart urging one to good or evil.

On occasion the various movements in the heart are quickly identifiable either as the satanic whisperings (waswasah) of the nafs or as the impulses of the malak. Much more difficult, however, are those times when the origin of the khawâtir is unclear. For the devil-nafs ex­cels at deluding the soul of the Sufi and seducing him to actions that, while not sinful, deflect him from the road to the greater good. It is in dealing with these spir­itual dilemmas that the techniques of Sufi psychology articulated in the manual tradition demonstrate their subtlety and true sophistication.

Hasan al-Başri. A leading figure of the period was Hasan al-Başri, who was born in Medina in 642 but set­tled in Basra, where he died in 728. Hasan was re­nowned for his almost puritanical piety and exceptional eloquence. At the heart of his preaching was the rejec­tion of the world (al-dunyâ), which he described in a letter to the Umayyad caliph 'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz (r. 717-720) as a venomous snake, smooth to the touch, but deadly. Hasan contrasts this world of transience and corruption with the next world, which alone is a realm of permanence and fulfillment.

The extreme to which Hasan's anti-worldly stance led him is reflected most vividly in this same letter where he implies that the creation of the world was a mistake. From the moment God first looked on his handiwork, Hasan insists. God hated it. Such a theological position runs counter to the basic understanding of the value of creation that Islam shares with Judasim and Christian­ity. As Genesis 1:31 affirms, "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good." To speculate on the ori­gins of Hasan's Gnostic like condemnation of the mate­rial world would take us beyond the objectives of this present article; suffice it to say that ambivalence to­ward materiality remained a significant aspect of later Islamic mysticism. The impact of Gnostic ideas, how­ever, continued to mold later Sufism, especially in the eastern provinces of the empire. The work of Henry Cor-bin has done much to open for the student of Sufism this complex world of Sufi, and especially Ismâ'ili, gnosis.

Hasan al-Başri's asceticism, although world denying, did not entail the total abandonment of society or social structures. On the contrary, Hasan functioned as the moral conscience of the state and fearlessly criticized the power structures when he felt they overstepped moral bounds. He eschewed the role of the revolution­ary and refused to sanction movements designed to overthrow irreligious politicians. In Socratic fashion, Hasan preferred to work for the ruler's change of heart through persuasion, not violence. Hasan's dedication to ascetic ideals did not, moreover, lead him to forsake family life. He married and raised a family, albeit in straitened circumstances. While Hasan al-Başri is con­sidered a pivotal figure in the early development of Su­fism, he is also noted as a transmitter of traditions (hadith) and as a defender of human-freedom in the early theological debates of Islam.

Ibrâhim ibn Adham. While there are some extant written materials attributable to Hasan al-Başri, tex­tual sources for the lives and teachings of many early ascetics are of questionable value. Often the dearth of authentic historical sources makes it difficult, if not im­possible, to distinguish between facts and pious embel­lishments. A prime example is the life of the famous as­cetic Ibrâhim ibn Adham (d. 770?). Ibrâhim was said to be a prince of the formerly Buddhist city of Balkh; he gave up his throne in order to pursue the path of ascet­icism. Some Western commentators have pointed to the possible parallel between his life story and the Buddha legend.

The fables about Ibrâhim highlight his generosity, al­truism, and, most important, his complete trust in God (tawakkul). Ibrâhim's quietism, however, did not lead him to depend on others for his subsistence. He pre­ferred to work and scorned those who relied on begging. It would seem to be fact that he served in two naval battles against the Byzantines; while fighting in the sec­ond, he lost his life.

Many tales of Ibrâhim's life stand out because of the ascetic practices they describe. He cherished ridicule and humiliation; more startling is his joyous acceptance of physical abuse—bloody beatings, being dragged by a rope tied round his neck, being urinated upon, and the like. Clearly such stories are later additions by hagiographers. Nonetheless many Sufi writers accept these grotesque, seemingly mas­ochistic acts as integral elements of his life history. And such tales have helped to shape later authors' understandings of asceti­cism in this early period of Sufism.

Râbiah al-'Adawiyah. The actual transition from as­ceticism to true love mysticism in Islam is documented in the spiritual theory of one of the first great female Sufis, Rabi'ah al-'Adawiyah (d. 801). Sold into slavery as a child, she was eventually freed because of the depth of her piety. Râbi’ah's focus was not on asceticism as an end in itself, but rather on its ability to help foster a loving relationship with God. Asceticism was only one of the means necessary for the attainment of union; to make ascetic practices themselves the goal, and not in­timacy with the Beloved, was, in her estimation, a dis­tortion of the Sufi path.

The love Rabi'ah nurtured was completely altruis­tic; neither fear of Hell nor desires for Paradise were al­lowed to divert her gaze from the Beloved.

Rabi’ah's vision of altruistic love (mahabbah) and mystical intimacy (uns) are preserved in beautiful prayers and poems attributed to her. These represent some of the earliest aesthetic expressions of mystical ex­perience in Islam.

One particularly vivid body of fables scattered throughout the Muslim sources centers on the spiritual rivalry between Rabi’ah al-'Adawiyah and Hasan al-Başri. The problem with these tales, however, is that they describe a relationship that was historically im­probable. Hasan died in 728, when Rabi'ah was at best in her early teens. Despite its questionable historicity, the Hasan-Rabi'ah cycle provides a valuable insight into male-female relationships in early Sufi circles.

In the vast majority of these didactic tales Rabi'ah's spiritual insight and emotional maturity set her far above her male rival, Hasan, whose naiveté and pre­sumptuous self-confidence are held up to ridicule. On occasion the conflict is described in actual male-female terms, with Hasan and his male Sufi companions insist­ing that no woman has the ability to match a man's spiritual perfection. While Rabi'ah proves them wrong beyond the shadow of a doubt, there remains the fact that her success is due partially to the abandonment of the traditional female role and the assumption of more male characteristics. For example, she is said to have repeatedly refused Hasan's marriage proposals and re­mained celibate and childless throughout her life.

Dhû al-Nûn al-Mişri. A number of early Sufis such as Rabi’ah evinced a sophistication of esthetic expression and theoretical speculation that laid a solid foundation for later work by Sufi mystics. Pivotal figures such as Dhû al-Nûn al-Misri (d. 859) were both poetic stylists and theoreticians. Although no complete text of his mystical writings has survived, later writ­ers have preserved many of his logia, prayers, and poems. He was master of the epigram and an accomplished poetic stylist in Arabic. The full force of his literary tal­ent comes to light, however, in his prayers.

The child of Nubian parents, Dhû al-Nûn was born in Upper Egypt at the end of the eighth century. While many of the factual details of his life are often indistin­guishable from pious fiction, a reliable kernel of histor­ical data emerges. Although he lived in Cairo, Dhû al-Nûn traveled extensively, and during one of his sojourns in Baghdad, he ran afoul of the caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 847--861). The confrontation was sparked by his refusal to accept the Mu'tazili doctrine of the created ness of the Qur'an. For this act of defiance, Dhû al-Nûn was imprisoned; during his heresy trial, however, he so affected the caliph with his apologia for the Sufi life that al-Mutawakkil released him unharmed.

The preserved sayings of Dhû al-Nûn attest to the profundity of his mystical insight and to the skill with which he developed terminology and structures to ana­lyze the mystical life. He excelled at elucidating the nu­ances of the various stages (maqâmâtat) and states (ahwâl) encountered by the mystic along the Sufi path. To him is attributed the first construction of a coherent theory of ma'rifah, spiritual gnosis, which he contrasts with 'Urn, the more traditional path of discursive reason.

A pivotal aspect of Dhû al-Nûn's mysticism is the coincidentia oppositorum, the "conjunction of oppo­sites". The God who pours out his love upon the faithful Sufi wayfarer is, in Dhû al-Nûn's view, the same God who afflicts his lover with pain and torment. God is, at one and the same time, al-muhyi, "the giver of life," and al-mumit, "the one who kills." Legend has it that at his death the following words were found inscribed on his forehead:

This is the beloved of God.
Who died in God's love.
This is the slain of God,
Who died by God's sword.

Mystical Ecstasy. The evolution of ascetic and theo­retical priiiciples to guide the Sufi wayfarer, and the growing sophistication of aesthetic expressions of love mysticism were not the only signs of a maturing mysti­cal tradition in Islam. An additional area of creative ex­ploration by a number of ninth- and tenth-century Sufis centered on refining the understanding of what actually constitutes the goal of mystical experience.

Rabi'ah's articulation of the primacy of love in mys­tical union provided a general framework for discus­sion; it did not, however, resolve the most vexing ques­tion. Does union entail the complete obliteration of the lover's soul in the Beloved or is the object of mysticism a loving relationship in which both lover and Beloved preserve their independence? Expressed more techni­cally, of what do the experiences of mystical annihila­tion (fanâ) and persistence in union (baqâ) consist?

Abu Yazid al-Bistâmi. The debate was brought to a head in dramatic fashion by a number of mystics whose ecstatic utterances provoked and scandalized the tradi­tional elements both within and without the Sufi move­ment. One of the earliest ecstatics was Abu Yazid (known also as Bâyazid) Tayfûr ibn ‘Isa al-Bistâmi (d. 874), who lived in seclusion at Bistâm in the prov­ince of Qumis. Few details of his life are known, but it is said that he was initiated into the subtleties of mys­tical union by one Abu 'Alt al-Sindi and that he devel­oped a friendship with Dhû al-Nûn.

Muslim hagiographers and spiritual writers have pre­served, nevertheless, many of the ecstatic utterances (shatahat) attributed to Abu Yazid. These sayings differ from earlier Sufi expressions of union because of their seeming affirmation of the total identification of lover and Beloved. Cries of "Subhani!" ("Glory be to me!") and "Ma a'zama sha'ni!" ("How great is my majesty!") shocked the uninitiated because they smacked of shirk, associationism, and aroused many Muslims' suspicions that Sufism was a heretical movement.

In a famous text, considered spurious but existing in several versions, Abu Yazid vividly describes his reenactment of the Prophet's night journey (mi'raj) as a mystical ascent during which his "I" is gradually ab­sorbed into the "He" of the Beloved. Eventually "He" and "I" become interchangeable, for in reality the attributes of Abu Yazid's essence have been subsumed into God.

This particular understanding of mystical annihila­tion (fanâ’) is characteristic of Abu Yazid's mystical the­ory. Complete fanâ’ is attained only after the most ar­duous stripping away of one's attributes. Nothing is spared, neither personality nor spiritual attainments. Abu Yazid compares the process to the snake's struggle to slough off its skin, or to the blacksmith's violent ma­nipulation of red-hot iron. The mystic experiences the most dramatic shifts of emotion and spiritual experi­ence; the soul vacillates between the expansive rapture of bast, in which the self appears literally to fill a room, and the implosion of qabd, in which the self seems re­duced to the size of the tiniest sparrow.

Because of the apparent extremism of his ecstatic ut­terances, al-Bistâmi was revered by later Sufis as the advocate of the path of intoxication (sukr) in contrast with the path of sobriety (sahw) associated with the fa­mous Baghdad Sufi Abu al-Qasim al-Junayd (d. 910). The division between sober and intoxicated Sufis was to remain an important one throughout the history of Islamic mysticism.

Al-Hallaj. Despite their dramatic power, the ecstatic utterances of Abu Yazid al-Bistâmi are overshadowed by those of the most famous of the Baghdad mystics, Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj. He was born in 857 at al-Tur, in the Iranian province of Fars. His initiation into Sufism began early in life, while he was still a teenager. For over twenty years he lived in seculsion and was trained by a number of the great Sufi masters of the period: Sahl al-Tustari, "Amr al-Makki, and al-Junayd.

Eventually, however, al-Hallaj broke away from his teachers and became an itinerant preacher. His wander­ings led him through Arabia and Central Asia to the In­dian subcontinent. He came into contact with sages and mystics from a number of other religious traditions who expanded the horizons of his own religious experience. As he continued to mature spiritually al-Hallaj at­tracted increasingly larger numbers of disciples. He be­

came known as halloj al-asrdr, "the carder of con­sciences," a play on the family name al-Hallaj, which meant "cotton carder."

The core of al-Hallaj's preaching was a call to moral reform and to the experience of intense union with the Beloved. Among al-Hallaj's poetic and prose writings, one phrase stands out as the paradigmatic expression of mystical ecstasy, his famous "Ana al-Haqq!" ("I am the divine Truth!"). To the ears of non-Sufis and of more sober elements in Sufism, al-Hallaj's self-divinizing cry was tantamount to shirk, if not a bald rephrasing of the Christian notion of incarnation (hulul).

It is very doubtful that al-Hallaj wished to be consid­ered primarily a metaphysician. Consequently the charges leveled against him were due to misperceptions of the intent of his mystical expressions. It would re­main for later Sufis to articulate philosophically a doc­trine of. identity between God and creation. Al-Hallaj's expressions of ecstasy, on the contrary, are part of a tra­dition whose main goal was to celebrate the transform­ing power of the experience of mystical union with the Beloved; secondarily the concern was to contribute to the growing body of technical terminology and theoret­ical speculation about the nature of mysticism.

Many scholars have considered al-Hallaj's proclamation of unique intimacy with the divine to be one of the main causes of his eventual imprisonment and execu­tion at the hands of the Abbasid authorities. There is no doubt that al-Hallaj's ecstatic utterances and his rein-terpretation of certain elements of Islamic ritual prac­tice were objects of violent criticism by many of the re­ligious hierarcy. His execution, however, was as much the result of politics as of mysticism.

Al-Hallaj's insistence on announcing publicly his vision of mystical union transgressed a cardinal principle of the great Sufi masters of his generation. The accom­plished mystic was never to divulge to the uninitiated experiences that were beyond their comprehension; the true nature of union was to be discussed only with one's fellow adepts or not at all. Such elitism did not conform to al-Hallaj's more populist notion of mysticism. For his lack of prudence he was ostracized by his former teacher al-Junayd and was branded a political threat and rabble-rouser by the secular authorities.

Finally, al-Hallaj found himself embroiled in caliphal politics during the reign of al-Muqtadir (908-932). He was lionized and defended by one vizier and con­demned by the next, protected by the caliph's mother, but finally sentenced to death by the son. Al-Hallaj spent about eight years in prison before he was eventu­ally executed in 922. The gruesome details have been recorded by his disciples: al-Hallaj was flogged, muti­lated, exposed on a gibbet, and finally decapitated. The body was then burned. For al-Hallaj, however, death was not a defeat; on the contrary, he desired fervently to become a martyr of love. Al-Hallaj was convinced that it was the duty of the religious authorities to put him to death, just as it was his duty to continue to preach aloud the unique intimacy he shared with the divine:

Kill me, my trusted friends.

for in my death is my life!

Death for me is in living, and

life for me is in dying.

The obliteration of my essence

is the noblest of blessings.

My perdurance in human attributes,

the vilest of evils.

The creativity of al-Hallaj's work is reflected perhaps most strikingly in his ingenious use of the science of op­posites. In his Kitab al-tawasin al-Hallaj describes his two role models in mysticism as Iblis (the devil) and Pharaoh. Both suffered condemnation at the hands of God, al-Hallaj attests, yet neither swerved from his ap­pointed course. The Qur'anic text affirms on several oc­casions that Iblis, who was chief of the angels and the most dedicated of monotheists, was commanded by God to bow to the newly created Adam. He refused, de­spite God's threat to condemn him forever, and chose, like al-Hallaj, to become a martyr of love.

My refusal is the cry, "Holy are you!"

My reason is madness, madness for you.

What is Adam. other than you?

And who is Iblis to set apart one from the other?

All three are outcasts who have transgressed the law to attain a higher goal. Yet the reason for the transgres­sion is each one's love relationship with God, which functions as a higher law for the perfected Sufi.

My friend and my teacher are Iblis and Pharaoh. Iblis was threatened with the fire, but he did not go back on his preaching. And Pharaoh was drowned in the Red Sea, but he did not acknowledge any mediator at all. . . . And if I were killed, or crucified, or if my hands and feet were cut off, I would not go back on my preaching.

'Ayn al-Qudat, An even more subtle treatment of the science of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum) is evi­dent in the work of another martyr-mystic of Islam, 'Ayn al-Qudat al-Hamadhani, who was born in western Iran in 1098. He proved himself a brilliant student as a young man, mastering the traditional Islamic religious sciences. He was also recognized for the quality of his literary style in both Arabic and Persian. The most in-' fluential Sufi master in his spiritual formation was Ah-

mad al-Ghazali (d. 1128), a preeminent teacher and the brother of the most famous mystic-theologian in Islam, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111). Ahmad's own contri­bution to Sufism is considerable, especially his classic treatise on mystical love, Sawanih.

As 'Ayn al-Qudat's fame grew, his disciples increased and, like al-Hallaj, he soon incurred the wrath of the religious and political authorities. He was accused of a number of heretical ideas, the most serious being the claim that there was a complete identity between the Creator and his creation. Imprisoned in Baghdad, 'Ayn al-Qudat was later transferred to his native city of Hamadhan where he was put to death in grisly fashion in 1131; He was only thirty-three years of age.

The conjunction of opposites, according to 'Ayn al-Qudat, is reflected in the very notion of the God of Is­lam. One need look only to the Muslim confession of faith (Shahadah) for confirmation: "La ilaha ilia Allah" ("There is no god but God!"). La ilaha ("there is nogod") i$ the realm of the malevolent divine attributes, which spawn falsehood and which seduce the soul of the mys­tic away from the truth.

To pass from la ilaha to the realm of ilia Allah ("but God") requires that the Sufi wayfarer confront God's chamberlain, who stands guard at the threshold of ilia Allah. Who is this chamberlain? None other than the devil Iblis.

In the same way that al-Hallaj in his Kitab al-tawasin purports that the devil Iblis is a model of piety, 'Ayn al-Qudat employs this paradoxical motif to dramatize the tension of opposites in God. He links Iblis with Muham­mad, claiming that both are but different aspects of the same divine reality. Iblis is described as the black light of straying while Muhammad is the white light of truth and gnosis; both spring, however, from the same attri­bute of God, namely his power. Muhammad is the guid­ing light of God's power while Iblis is its destructive fire.

Perhaps the most creative symbols employed by 'Ayn al-Qudat to capture the conflict within God are those of the curl and the mole that lay upon the face of the Be­loved. The lock of hair that hangs in an arrogant curl over the cheek of the Beloved enjoys a privileged state of intimacy. Instead of driving away the seeker from the threshold of ilia Allah with the sword of divine power, or deceiving the soul with black light, the Iblis-curl dis­tracts and seduces the Sufi with the amorous gestures of the coquette, thus entangling the soul in lesser spiri­tual attainments.

The image of the Iblis-curl must, of course, have its Muhammad counterpart. In addition to the curl, the mistress possesses another mark of beauty, a black mole on the cheek that is equated with Muhammad. Both

curl and mole, however, spring from the face of God;

the curl is seducer while the mole is the guide to Truth.

All of the paradoxical images used by 'Ayn al-Qudat— the tension between curl and mole, black light and white light, between Id ildha and ilia Allah—point to the fact that God himself is the source of paradoxes. More- | over "Ayn al-Qudat is convinced that both poles of the paradox must be experienced if one is to attain true spiritual gnosis:

Unbelief and faith are two veils beyond the throne between God and the servant, because man must be neither unbe­liever nor Muslim.

Al-Ghazâli. The effort of many of the writers to legitimize Sufism's place in Islam culminates in the work of a man whose contribution to the Islamic reli­gious sciences ranges far beyond mysticism. Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali was bom at Tus near the modem Iranian city of Mashhad in 1058. His early training was in jurisprudence (fiqh), but he soon excelled in theology (kaldm) and eventually in Arabic philosophy (falsafah), which was exemplified by the Neoplatonism of al-Farabi and Ibn Sina (Avicenna).

A recurring theme in al-Ghazali's work is the relation­ship between reason and revelation. The great Arab phi­losophers tilted the balance in favor of reason, insisting that truth was attainable without the aid of revelation. The conclusions arrived at by philosophers, however, did not always conform to the standard orthodoxy de­rived from the Qur'an. For example, dogmas on the cre­

ation of the world from nothing, the resurrection of the dead. God's knowledge of particulars as well as univer-sals—all were called into question by the philosophers.

Al-Ghazali championed the truth of revelation over that of philosophical speculation. He was not, like some fundamentalist extremists, antiphilosophical however. On the contrary, al-Ghazali's fascination with philo­sophical logic is manifested in many of his works, for he was convinced that philosophy could contribute sub­stantially to Muslims' understanding of law and theol­ogy. It was only against the excesses of philosophy that he railed in his Tahdfut al-faldsifah (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), not against philosophical reasoning per se.

Al-Ghazali's influence was enhanced by the political support he received from the ruling authorities, espe­cially the Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk, who appointed him professor at the Nizamiyah madrasah in Baghdad in 1091. It was during his professorship at Baghdad, however, that a personal crisis radically transformed the future shape of al-Ghazali's career. Whereas his ear­lier concerns had been with more theoretical and spec­ulative issues, the focus now shifted to the role of reli­gious experience in the life of the Muslim.

In 1095 al-Ghazali experienced what can only be called an emotional and psychological breakdown. As he described it later in his autobiography, Al-munqidh min al-daldl (The Deliverer from Error), his state of anx­iety left him almost catatonic. He suffered terrible doubts about his ability to arrive at any religious truth;

more important he was overwhelmed by the emptiness of external religious ritual and law. Al-Ghazali aban­doned his teaching career and sought a solution to his doubts in Sufism, which, he hoped, would provide him with the personal experience of truth or dhawq (lit., "taste").

The success of his quest is attested by his later writ­ings, which foster the integration of an interior life with the life of external observance. Alone, each leads either to excess or to spiritual myopia; together, however, they constitute a life of balance and dynamic spiritual growth. To this end al-Ghazali wrote what was to be his most influential work, the Ihyd' 'ulum al-din (Revivifi­cation of the Religious Sciences), which epitomizes his vision of Islamic life and which remains an integral part of the training of Muslim scholars to this day.

After eleven years of absence from teaching, al-Gha­zali was persuaded to return once again to the class­room by the vizier Fakhr al-Mulk, son of his late patron, Nizam al-Mulk. His second career lasted only several years, for he retired to a Sufi convent at Tus before his death in 1111. The measure of his impact on the intellectual life of Islam is impossible to calculate. In the history of Sufism, however, he is especially remembered for having contributed substantially to the acceptance of mystical experience as an integral dimension of Is­lamic religion.

Other Genres* In addition to the Sufi manuals, other important genres of mystical literature developed in the classical period. Fables, epigrams, epic poems, poetry, aphorisms, all were creative vehicles for mystical expression. Early Qur'an commentators and street preachers had focused on the lives of the prophets for inspiration. This spawned the Qisas al-anbiyd' (Tales of the Prophets), collections of lively didactic stories, often with moral themes. In similar fashion the lives of fa­mous Sufis were assembled by mystical writers into biographical dictionaries, which evolved into important companion volumes to the manuals.

Despite the fact that authors rarely distinguished be­tween historical fact and pious fiction, these hagio-graphic compendia are crucial for our knowledge of the lives and teachings of the great masters of classical Su­fism. Individual compilers, moreover, offer important critiques of a number of Sufi movements, mystical the­ories, and the like.

The first systematic history of the lives of Sufi mystics is ascribed to Abu *Abd al-Rahman al-Azdi al-Sulami (d. 1021).His Taba^dtal'sufty ah (Generations of the Sufis) became the basis for the expanded versions of two later Sufis, the Tabaq&t al-suftyah of Abu Isma'il Abd Allah Ansari (d. 1089) and the Nafdkat al-uns (Wafts of Plea­sure) of Nur al-Din 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad Jami (d. 1492). The most comprehensive work of Sufi hagiog-raphy. however, is the prodigious, multivolume Hilyat al-awliya (Necklace of Saints) of Abu Nu'aym al-Isfa-hani (d. 1037). Later writers continued the tradition, in­cluding Farid al-Din 'Attar (d. 1221 ?) with his Tadhkirat al-awliyd' (Biographies of the Saints).

'Abd Allah Ansari and the epigram. Many of these authors excelled at more than one genre of mystical liter­ature. 'Abd Allah Ansari of Herat, a city in present-day Afghanistan, for example, is noted for important works on mystical theory but most especially for his epigrams, the Mundjdt (Intimate Conversations). This tiny book, a milestone in Sufi literature, is the vade mecum of count­less Persian-speaking Muslims. Although the text ap­pears deceptively simple it contains the kernel of An­sari's complex vision of mystical union.

To appreciate Ansari's contribution to Islamic mysti­cism, it is essential to place him in the context of the theological debates that resulted in the classical synthe­sis of al-Ash'ari (d. 935) and his school. Controversies arose in the ninth century over differing interpretations of the Qur'anic verses dealing with freedom and predes­

tination, the nature of divine attributes, and the origins of good and evil. The most influential group defending radical freedom and moral responsibility were the Mu'tazilah, whose views were strongly influenced by Greek thought. Since human beings are responsible for their deeds, they insisted, God cannot be blamed in any way for human turpitude. Reward and punishment are absolutely just because God himself is just. Further­more God's justice requires that actions have an intrinsic moral worth that can be recognized by men and women.

The logic of the Mu'tazili view, nevertheless, was challenged by verses in the Qur'an itself that emphasize God's complete omnipotence and question human beings' ability to determine their fates, for God "leads astray whomever he wills and guides whomever he wills" (16:93). A solution proposed by al-Ash'ari and his followers was to choose neither radical freedom nor complete predestination, but rather to affirm both as true. This use of paradox as a henneneutical tool permeates both theology and mysticism in Islam.

It must be admitted, however, that al-Ash'ari's views leaned more in the direction of predestinarianism than of freedom. He was a staunch proponent of God's com­plete control over human actions; freedom is little more than God's willingness to allow us to participate in his determination of our fate. It is God alone who first creates our actions and then ascribes them to us.

Even secondary causality is called into question be­cause to assert that nature functions independently ac­cording to its own laws seems to ascribe to nature an independent power separate from God, a position smacking of shirk. In defending God's absolute omnipo­tence, furthermore, al-Ash'ari was obliged to deny the intrinsic goodness or evil of human actions. An action is good or evil only because God has determined it to be so. Lying, for example, is evil because God has so decreed; if he changed his mind lying would be right.

Ansari's theological views were even more conserva­tive than those of al-Ash'ari. As a follower of Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855), Ansari defended the most literalist interpretations of the Qur'an. Whereas the Mu'tazilah allegorized the anthropomorphic descriptions of God's attributes in the Qur'an, and the Ash'ariyah affirmed their existence, albeit in a way beyond the grasp of hu­man reason, Ansari and the Hanabilah insisted that the verses must be taken at face value. Consequently his po­sitions appeared even more paradoxical than those of the more moderate Ash'ariyah.

As Ansari indicates in the Mundjat, God commands us to obey him and then prevents our compliance. Adam and Eve, for example, are seduced not by Satan, but by God. Their seduction is predestined and they are obliged to particpate. Despite the seeming victimization of humans by God, however, the Sufis are not to con­clude that they are absolved of responsibility for their evil deeds. Paradoxical as it may sound, Ansari recom­mends that the true attitude of the devoted mystic is that taken by Adam and Eve when they were confronted with the tragedy of their sin. They realized they were God's pawns but blamed themselves for the deed: "And they both said, *0 Lord, we have wronged ourselves!'" (surah 7:23).

Ansari moves naturally in the Munajdt from a discus­sion of the paradoxical tension between freedom and predestination to that between good and evil. And he reflects an attitude toward ethics that is characteristic of many of the ecstatic Sufts: whatever God wills for the mystic, be it blessing or curse, intimacy or separation, is good because it comes from God. Such a stance runs counter to the mainstream ethics of Sunni Islam, which locate the guide for human action and the determination of moral worth in the synthesis of Qur'an, hadith, and short'ah.

For the perfected Sufi, however, there is a higher law, namely the love relationship, that determines action and provides the means to evaluate the goodness or evil of particular behavior. The upshot is that, for the Sufi elite, certain practices are permissible that would be disproved according to the religious law of the commu­nity.

Such an attitude has often been cited as proof of the dangerous antinomian tendencies endemic to Sufism. On closer examination, however, such behavior is not that far removed from the classical Ash'ari synthesis. Al-Ash'ari, we have seen, claims that actions are good or evil because God determines them to be so; more­over, if he changed his mind about a particular action its moral worth would change. What one finds in the behavior of a number of Sufis is, in fact, the acting out of this hypothetical case, for the Sufi elite insist that the quality of their love relationship with the divine raises them to a higher tier of ethics, one at times radically different from the lower tier. Ansari counsels the Sufi to move beyond the everyday concerns with reward or punishment, and beyond the common notions of good and evil. The goal is to please the Beloved; that is what constitutes the good.

Ansari goes so far as to claim that the lover-beloved relationship moves one to a plateau on which even the five pillars of Islam appear superfluous. The pilgrimage to Mecca is an occasion for tourism; almsgiving is something that should be left to philanthropists; fasting is an ingenious way to save food; and ritual prayers should be left to old crones. The focus of the mystic should not be the laws and ritual structures of the Islamic community (ummah); it is the love relationship that supersedes all.

Ansari is a dramatic example of the mystic whose basic theological and religious conservatism do not bar him from the most exuberant expressions of union. He is not, however, alone in perceiving that the Sufi adept must often move beyond the constraints of Islamic law. Abu Sa'id ibn Abi al-Khayr (d. 1089) of Mayhana in Khorasan, for example, mirrors as well the same para­doxical approach to religious practice. He began his life as a violent ascetic, isolating himself from normal so­cial intercourse and faithfully observing the obligations of the law. It is said that he was discovered by his father hanging upside down in a pit, reciting the Qur'an.

At the age of forty, however, Abu Sa'id attained gnosis (ma'rifah) and his actions changed dramatically. He and his followers became renowned for their feast­ing. In place of ritual prayer, communal Sufi devotions were substituted. Once, when questioned by a non-ini­tiate about his attitude toward the pillars of Islam, es­pecially the pilgrimage to Mecca, he replied that it was a waste of time to travel so far simply to circumambu­late a stone house (the Ka'bah). Rather, the sacred cube should circumambulate him! These statements, shock­ing though they were to non-Sufis and even to some of the more sober mystics, were not intended to flout the law. On the contrary, the privileged spiritual elite un­derstood their behavior as that which was enjoined on them by the Beloved.

The mathnavi: Farid al-Din 'Attar: The epigrams of "Abd Allah Ansari, succinct and accessible to a wide range of people, are in sharp contrast with the poetic genre of mathnavi, which was introduced into Sufism by the Ghaznavid poet Hakim Abu al-Majd Majdud ibn Adam Sana'i (d. 1131?). The rhyming couplets of the mathnavi had previously been made famous in secular literature by the renowned Persian poet Firdawsi in his Shdh-namah (The Epic of the Kings). The general struc­ture of SanaTs mystical mathnavis, the most famous of which is the Hadiqat al-haqiqah (The Garden of Truth). is imitated by later Sufi authors. The framework con­sists of mystical teachings interspersed with illustrative fables, anecdotes, proverbs, and the like. The different mathnavis vary, however, in length, the quality of their style, and in the organization and development of their themes.

Important as SanaYs introduction of the mathnavi into Sufism was, he is not remembered as a great styl­ist. For a true master of the mathnavi form we must turn to the Persian poet and spiritual guide, Farid al-Din 'Attar (d. 1221?). 'Attar lived most of his life in and around the city of Nishapur, near the modem Iranian city of Mashhad. It is reported that he was killed during the Mongol sack of the city. His name indicates his oc­cupation, that of apothecary, and it appears that he continued in his profession even as he composed his mystical treatises.

It is evident from 'Attar's work that he was a man learned in both the religious sciences and secular liter­ature. He demonstrates enormous perspicacity in his treatment of the subtleties of the spiritual life. "Attar's success, however, is due equally to the fact that he pos­sessed the requisite literary skills to mold his ideas into an aesthetic whole of genuine quality. 'Attar is poet, storyteller, and spiritual theorist; he entertains, cajoles, and leads the reader through numerous levels of spiri­tual awareness.

Of his mathnavis the best known is the mythic fable Mantiq al-tayr (The Conference of the Birds). The text operates on a number of levels. On the surface it is a lively fable about a group of birds who decide to seek out their king, the Simurgh, of whom they have only the barest recollections. The journey is long and arduous, the path uncertain. Many birds abandon the quest out of weakness, apathy or fear; others perish along the way. Finally thirty birds arrive at the palace of the Si­murgh. This event constitutes the pun on which the story is based, for "thirty birds" in Persian is si murgh.

The far more serious level on which the fable operates is that of an elaborate analysis of the Sufi path. Asceti­cism, illumination, and finally union are explored in depth. The internal structure of the work resembles an ascending spiral staircase. The bird-souls progress up­ward, often returning to an earlier point, except now at a more advanced level. The birds are not uniform souls but mirror a variety of human personality types. Their strengths and difficulties reflect, moreover, the issues faced by a wide variety of Sun seekers.

The overall power of the work is due to its meticulous organization. It is necessary to study the text closely to appreciate the care with which 'Attar develops his multileveled thematic structure. The last section of the work describes the seven valleys through which the tested remnant must pass in order to reach the Si­murgh. The final valley is that of fcma, "annihilation," where the thirty birds merge with their beloved Si­murgh as the moth merges with the flame.

Lyric and mathnavi: Jalal al-Din RumL Despite 'At­tar s obvious literary and analytic skills, his work is sur­passed by the greatest of the Persian mystical poets, Jalal al-Din Rumi (known as Mawlana, "our master"). Rumi was born in Baikh in 1207, the son of Baha' al-Din Walad, who was himself a noted legist, teacher, and spiritual guide. Around 1219, however, Baha' al-Din left Baikh because of the threat of invasion by the Mongols. The family set out on pilgrimage to Mecca, passing

through the city of Nishapur where, it is reported, Baha' al-Din and his young son met 'Attar, who predicted Rumi's future greatness.

Baha' al-Din settled eventually in Konya in Anatolia (known as Rum, hence the name Rumi). He was warmly received by the ruling Seljuk authorities and resumed his career as teacher and shaykh. Following in his fa­ther's footsteps, Jalal al-Din became well versed in the Islamic religious sciences and philosophical theology. After Baha' al-Din's death in 1231, Jalal al-Din assumed his father's teaching post.

Rumi's Sufi training progressed in serious fashion un­der the tutelage of Burhan al-Din Muhaqqiq, one of his father's disciples. The critical moment in Rumi's spiri­tual development, however, was his meeting in 1244 with Shams al-Din of Tabriz. For two years they were inseparable, Rumi finding in Shams the vehicle through which to experience the true ecstasy of mystical love. Their relationship was a source of jealousy and scandal among Rumi's family and followers. Abruptly, Shams departed Konya for parts unknown.

Rumi was disconsolate, but, with the help of his son Sultan Walad, he engineered Shams's return. Rumi's rekindled joy was shortlived, however, because Shams disappeared for the last time in 1248, and there is per­suasive circumstantial evidence that Shams was murdered, perhaps with the connivance of Rumi's family.

The intense love relationship Rumi shared with Shams was the catalyst for the creation of some of the most extraordinary poetry in the Persian language. Rumi was prolific; his poetic verses number close to forty thousand, collected in a work that bears the name of his beloved, the Divdn-i Shams-i Tabriz!. He is a master of imagery, ranging from the mundane realities of food, weaving, and the like to more subtle treatments of nature, music, and religious symbols. Prominent, of course, is the image of Shams, "the sun," in whose bril­liance and intensity Rumi loses himself. Both the agony of separation and the exhiliration of union ebb and flow throughout his poetry. The emotions evoked run the gamut of human experience. Rumi does not hesitate to shock; anger, cruelty, and vulgar sexuality share the stage with the ecstasy of annihilation in the Beloved, proving that the Sufi quest must not be romanticized. Love not only has the potential to fulfill; it also destroys.

Rumi's other masterpiece, his Mathnavi'yi ma^fnavi (Spiritual Couplets), was written at the urging of his cherished disciple Husam al-Din Chelebi. Husam al-Din, like many Sufis of the period, discovered in the mathnavis of Sana'i and 'Attar a wealth of spiritual wis­dom. It was imperative, Husam al-Din believed, for his revered shaykh to preserve his teachings in similar fashion for posterity. Thus Rumi was persuaded to dictate his Mathnavi to Husam al-Din, who transcribed the text and read it back to his master for correction. The final product is substantial, six books totaling almost thirty thousand verses. Several of Rumi's lesser works—let­ters, discourses, and sermons—have been preserved as well.

Whereas "Attar's works, especially his mathnavis, are noted for their clear structural development, those of Rumi resemble more the stream-of-consciousness style. One must be steeped in Rumi's work before daring to analyze his thought.

The statement is often made that Rumfs Mathnavi is the Qur'an of the Persians. While the main point is the enormous popularity the text has had, and continues to have, in the Persian-speaking world, there; is another level on which the comparison is apt. The Qur'an com­municates itself primarily in individual, sometimes self-contained, units, not as a structured whole. Similarly, many segments of the Mathnavi have an internal unity of their own. Yet the sections of the text are strung loosely together like a string of pearls of different sizes, shapes, and hues. Themes appear and disappear, only to be addressed again from a different perspective. To seek out a unifying structural element in the Mathnavi is perhaps to do an injustice to the intent of the author. Its appeal lies in its fluidity and allusiveness. True, this can be frustrating at times; frustration, however, soon turns to fascination as the reader is lured once again into the complex web of Rumi's thought.

Gnosis and Ibn 'Arabi

The history of mysticism in Islam is replete with in­dividuals of brilliance and creativity. Among these ex­ceptional personalities, however, one stands out from the rest because of his unique genius. Abu Bakr Muham­mad ibn al-'Arabi al-HStimi al-Ta'i was born at Murcia in Muslim Spain in 1165. He is honored with the titles "Al-Shaykh Al-Akbar" ("doctor maximus") and "Muhyî al-Din" ("the revivifier of religion"). Eventually he came to be known under the name Muhyî al-Din ibn "Arabi.

While still a child, Ibn ‘Arabi and his family moved to Seville, where he received the greater part of his ed­ucation in the traditional Islamic religious disciplines. He was greatly influenced in his spiritual development by two female Sufis, especially Fatimah of Cordova. A great deal of his mystical insight, however, evolved from visionary experiences, the first occurring during an illness in his youth. Throughout his life he continued to have visions on which he placed a great deal of reliance.

Ibn 'Arabi's visionary bent is equally evident in his claim to have been initiated into Sufism by the mythic figure Khidr, a mysterious being, said to be immortal, associated with a Qur'anic fable (surah 18) and pre-Islamic legends. Khidr is renowned in Sufism as a saint and guide of exceptional spiritual power; to be chosen, as one of his disciples is a rare privilege.

In his early twenties Ibn ‘Arabi traveled extensively throughout Spain and North Africa and broadened his intellectual perspectives. He describes a unique meeting in Cordova with the greatest of the Muslim Aristotelian philosophers, Ibn Rushd (known as Averroes in the Latin West). The encounter is heavy with symbolism, for Ibn Rushd represents the total reliance of philoso­phers on reason ('aql), while Ibn 'Arabi champions gnosis (ma'rifah) as the only means to experience the fullness of truth.

In 1201 Ibn 'Arabi left Spain and North Africa for the last time, undertaking travels that brought him to many important centers of Islamic learning. In 1223 he settled in Damascus, where he remained until his death in 1240. His mausoleum continues to be an important pilgrimage center.

Ibn 'Arabi is unique because he was both an original thinker and synthesizer. Many of his ideas resonate with earlier intellectual developments in Sufism and in philosophical theology. His greatness, however, lies in his ability to systematize Sufi theory into a coherent whole with solid metaphysical underpinnings. Ibn ‘Arabi, therefore, should not be viewed as an eccentric out­side of the mainstream, but rather as the genius who was able to gather together various strains of mystical philosophy and to mold them into an esthetic whole.

The corpus of Ibn ‘Arabi’s work is massive, which complicates considerably any attempt at a comprehen­sive analysis of his thought. In addition his style is often dense, reflecting the esoteric nature of his ideas. Two of his most influential works are Al-futuhât al-makkiyah (The Meccan Revelations), which he was ordered to write in a visionary experience while on pilgrimage, and Fuşûş al-hikam (The Bezels of Wisdom).

Wahdat al-Wujûd.

The central concept in Ibn 'Arabi's system is wahdat al-wujâd, "unity of being." Scholars have debated whether Ibn 'Arabi intends this term to describe a monist system, where nothing exists but the One. An affirmative response does not indicate, how­ever, a dramatic shift in Muslim metaphysics because, in reality, Ibn *Arabi is only taking the Ash'ari synthesis to its logical extreme. The Ash'ari insistence on God's total omnipotence and control over the universe implies that God is the only true agent. It is not illogical, there­fore, to suggest, as Ibn "Arabi does, that God must also be the only true existent.

The divine essence in itself is completely transcen­dent; it is, in fact, unknowable, the lâ ilâha ("there is no god") of the Muslim confession of faith. This plane of unconditioned unity (ahadîyah), however, is not the only plane on which divine reality exists. The plane of oneness (wâhidîyah) is characterized by a unity in plurality, a unity in which the qualities of all possible existents reside. Once again the ultimate solution is paradox. The divine is undifferentiated and totally tran­scendent; yet in the divine are discovered the qualities of all potential beings.

Reality, therefore, is tiered, a progression of spiritual manifestations. Ultimate reality is the theos agnostos, the "unknown God," from which emerge the different planes of divine existence, culminating in the God of revelation, Allah, the illâ Allah ("but God"), of the confession of faith. The creation of the cosmos occurs, not out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo) as traditional West­ern theology would have it, but because of the yearning of the unknown God to escape from isolation. A hadith dear to Sufis encapsulates God's intent: "I was a hidden treasure and I desired to be known, so I created the cre­ation in order that I might be known."

Creation, therefore, is the manifestation of the One in the plurality of created beings. God's sigh of longing breathes forth the universe, the mirror in which he comes to know himself. The agency through which the cosmos is produced is the divine creative imagination. The process is not static but dynamic, for in the same way that God exhales, he inhales, drawing creation back to its source in the One. Gnosis for the Sun, there­fore, entails progress along the path from illusion (the naive conviction that heis ah independent reality dis­tinct from God) to insight into creation's identification with God's self-revelation.

The Perfect Human Being. The mirror that the One projects forth is not uniformly 'polished. The created being in which the Absolute becomes most fully con­scious of itself is man. And there is in every generation al-insân al-kâmil, the Perfect Human Being, who is the link between Absolute Being and the created realm. Through the mediacy of the Perfect Human Being the dynamic process of emanation and return takes place. In fact, the process would be impossible without that being, the most perfected Sun, the qutb ("pole"), the axis around which the cosmos revolves.

Ibn "Arabi's emanationist view of creation reinterprets, moreover, the traditional understanding of the goal of mysticism in Islam. Many early Sufis described the path as a growth in loving union between a soul, which retains its essential independence, and the Be­loved who, while being the source of creation, is distinct from it. For Ibn 'Arabi and his followers, the goal is not primarily love but wisdom, to move from the illusion of plurality to the gnostic insight that one has always been, and will continue to be, totally united with the source of all being.

Wahdat al-wujûd. has enormous implications, further­more, for the Sufi understanding of human freedom and ethics. Nothing manifests itself in creation unless God wills it. This is an axiom of both Ibn 'Arabi and tradi­tional Islam. In Ibn "Arabi's system, the archetypes of all potential beings exist in the One. When these poten­tial realities are actualized in the illusory realm of plu­rality, they function completely in accord with their ce­lestial archetypes. In the realm of the created world, therefore, individual free choice is illusory. All change is predetermined by the archetype of the particular reality. Freedom exists only insofar as all creatures par­ticipate in the freedom of the One, with which they are ultimately identified.

Ethics, in addition, must be seen in the light of the determinative power of the celestial archetypes. In the realm of creation, the law (shari'ah) delineates what ac­tions are in accord with God's revelation. From the per­spective of the One, however, all actions are good since they are manifestations of the divine creative imagina­tion and are in accord with the celestial archetypes. Culpability is relative because it is operative only in the realm of created illusion. Eventually all return to the undifferentiated One; thus there is no eternal reward or punishment in the traditional sense.

The complexity of Ibn 'Arabi's-thought defies sum­mation in a few brief paragraphs. Nor have scholars in the field yet gained sufficient mastery of his work to un­ravel his convoluted and sometimes contradictory ideas. What is clear, however, is the pervasive influence of Ibn 'Arabi and his school on later Sufism. Disciples such as Sadr al-Din Qûnawi (d. 1274) in Anatolia and commentators on his work such as *Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad Jami (d. 1492) in Persia disseminated his ideas throughout the Islamic world.

Sufi Fraternities

The history of Sufism is much more than the history of mystical theory and expression. There is a significant social dimension to Islamic mysticism that must be ex­plored if the picture is to be complete. Even many of the early Sufis, individualists though they were, sought out the advice and counsel of their fellow wayfarers. From the very beginning, therefore, companionship (suhbah) was considered essential for progress in the spiritual life. [See Suhbah.]

Fluid interaction among Suns soon evolved into the more structured relationship of master and disciple, adding a new level of social complexity. Not only would disciples visit their masters, but many also took up residence with them. The earliest formal Sufi convent seems to date from the latter part of the eighth century ce, on the island of Abadan.

Political changes in the Islamic empire contributed to the stabilization of Sufi institutional structures. In the mid-eleventh century the Seljuks wrested control of the Abbasid caliphate from the Shî'î Buyids. The Seljuks were staunch Sunnis who took over the religious edu­cational system of the madrasahs in order to reindoctrinate the intelligentsia with Sunni orthodoxy. The public support they provided for Sufi establishments afforded the Seljuks more control over the type of Sufi piety in­culcated in the new recruits, but at the same time, government patronage ensured the survival of the various Sufi institutions.

By the thirteenth century, several types of Sufi estab­lishments had evolved, each with a different general purpose. The ribât was a residence or training center, which originated in the Arab regions of the empire. Khânqâhs were similar establishments rooted in the more persianized environment of Khorasan; they eventually spread, however, into the Arab centers. The more serious training took place in the zâwiyahs, which usu­ally housed a teaching shaykh; khalwah is the name given to the retreat of a single Sufi or dervish. (Dervish is derived from the Persian word for Sufi, darvish, "poor." "beggar.")

More important than the physical environment in which Sufis congregated is the evolving infrastructure of the Sufi communities themselves. In the eleventh century, fluid organizations continued to predominate;

their common link was the desire for suhbah and for the guidance of a shaykh. Frequently, a master and his dis­ciples remained a cohesive social unit only until the death of the master, after which the group disbanded.

By the thirteenth century the situation had altered significantly. Many Sufi groups became self-perpetuat­ing social organizations whose central focus was the founder and his teaching. No longer was the survival of the group dependent on a particular living shaykh; authority was passed from shaykh to disciple, thus providing a stable structural basis for the continued growth and development of the community. The new master was the chief custodian of the founder's spiritual legacy and, on occasion, an innovator in his own right. [See also Dervishes; Khanqah; and Madrasah.]"

Silsllahs. These stable social organizations came to be called tariqahs ("ways"), known in English as Sufi or­ders, fraternities or brotherhoods. Each founding shaykh had his silsilah ("chain"), his spiritual lineage which contributed substantially to his stature in the Sufi community. The silsilah is, more precisely, a genealogy. tracing the names of one's master, of one's master's master, and so on back through history. Often a prominent shaykh would have been initiated more than once, by a number of illustrious Sufis, thus adding additional stature to his spiritual pedigree.

There are two main silsilah groups, which later sub­divided into literally hundreds of Sufi fraternities. The first chain, generally considered the more sober of the two, traces its links back to Abu al-Qasim al-Junayd, the famed spiritual guide from whom al-Hallaj eventu­ally broke away. The second, and more intoxicated, sil­silah derives from the first great Sufi ecstatic, Abu Ya-zid al-Bistâmi. These designations are very general, and membership in either group indicates only a spiritual genealogy, not necessarily an actual attitude toward mystical experience.

The members of the Bistâmi branch are often called Malamati, "blameworthy." The appellation, however, can be overstressed, for it does not mean that they scorned Islamic law. On the contrary, many were meticulous in their observance. But eventually the name came to describe, in broad terms, those Sufis who es­chewed completely all of the public trappings of Sufism and of piety in general; they were characterized by the virtue of absolute sincerity (ikhlas). The Malamatiyah rejected Sufi initiation and the guidance of a shaykh, nor would they engage in public devotional practices common to Sufis. Whatever ritual acts they performed were carried out in private. Their individualism made them appear to some as suspicious and marginal. The Malamatiyah, nevertheless, should be clearly distin­guished from the Qalandariyah, or wandering der­vishes, many of whom did engage in practices that made mockery of the religious law and of traditional morality.

The centrality of silsilahs in Sufi fraternities is not completely unique. One discovers an analogous empha­sis in the hadith literature, where the literary structure of a hadith has two parts: the chain of transmitters (is-ndd) and the body of the text (matn). According to Mus­lim tradition, the authenticity of the hadith is guaran­teed by the reliability of the isndd. In the same way that the power of sacred word in the hadith has been pre­served by the chain of transmitters, so too do the teach­ings and powers of a particular shaykh remain alive through his silsilah.

Whether or not the isnads are historically reliable is not a question that need be discussed here. Suffice it to say that the importance of isnads for Muslims is to ground hadiths solidly in the period of the original rev­elation. Thus there can be no question that the teach­ings of the hadiths are innovations; rather hadiths are but more detailed insights into God's will already ex­pressed in general terms in the Qur'an.

In similar fashion the silsilahs of Sufi shaykhs provide them with religious legitimacy. Even though the Sufi orders may vary considerably in their teachings and at­titudes toward mystical experience, they each can claim, through their spiritual genealogies, to be solidly based upon the foundations of Sufism.

Veneration of Saints. The institutionalization of ta-riqahs and the emphasis on silsilahs enhanced substan­tially the religious and political position of the master. Whereas in the past the shaykh functioned primarily as an expert and confidant, he now became a repository of spiritual power as well. A shaykh's lineage did not pro­vide simply a list of teachers; it implied that the spiri­tual power of each of these great Sufis had been trans­mitted to this last member of the line.

The shaykhs of the great Sufi orders, therefore, took on superhuman qualities. They became known as aw-liyd' (sg., waft), intimates or friends of God. Their spiritual perfection raised them far above the level of their disciples and of the masses of Muslim faithful. The spread of Ibn 'Arabi's teaching, particularly the notion of the Perfect Human Being, which was elaborated upon by Ibn "Arabi's intellectual disciples, especially by 'Abd al-Karim ibn IbrSihim al-Jili (d. 1428), provided an in­tellectual framework within which to explain this cosmic role of the saintlike shaykh. Many of the shaykhs of important orders were acknowledged by their follow­ers as the qutb, the "pole" or "axis" around which the cosmos revolves, the Perfect Human Being, the point at which the divine Creative Imagination most fully man­ifests itself in the world of illusion. The fact that a num­ber of individuals claimed this status at one and the same time was cause for a certain amount of friction and rivalry among the powerful fraternities.

The concept of qutb is linked by Ibn 'Arabi and his predecessors with a whole hierarchy of cosmic beings. Al-Hujwiri describes them as the officers of the divine court, made up of three hundred akhydr ("excellent ones"), forty abddl ("substitutes"), seven abrar ("piously devoted ones"), four awtdd ("pillars"), three nuqabd' ("leaders"), and one qutb (known also as ghawth, "suc­cor"). Ibn 'Arabfs hierarchy is somewhat different in structure. The qutb is joined by two aimmah ("guides"), four awtdd, seven abddl, twelve nuqabd', and eight nu-jabd' ("nobles"). The cosmic hierarchy, regardless of its particular description, is the spiritual power through which the order and continued existence of the cosmos are ensured.

The term waft is often translated as saint; this is mis­leading because there is no religious hierarchy in Islam empowered to canonize individuals as saints, as one

has, for example, in Roman Catholicism. Rather, the status of waft is attained through public acclamation. There, are^ nevertheless, analogies between Christian saints and Muslim awliyd', insofar as both possess spir­itual power that is capable of being transmitted to dis­ciples or devotees. In Islam this power is called barakah ("blessing"). The barakah of a waft has the potential to transform an individual spiritually as well as to provide concrete material blessings. Barakah should be under­stood as concretely as possible. It is often transmitted through the power of touch, similar to the laying on of hands or the (application of relics, practices common in other religious traditions of the West. [For further dis­cussion of the awliya' ana barakah, see Folk Religion, article on Folk Islam, ana Walayah.]

The perfected shaykhs are objects of veneration both during their lives and after their deaths. It is generally accepted that they possess the power of miracles (kara-mat), although their miracles are subject to satanic in­fluence in a way that the miracles of prophets are not. The extraordinary powers of the awliya are not dimin­ished in any way after their death; on the contrary, their intercession often appears more efficacious. Con­sequently the tombs of great Sufi awliyd' are vibrant pilgrimage centers to this day.

Ritual Practice. Much has been said thus far about the shaykhs of Sufi orders. What were the general pat­terns of life of the members of these communities? It is difficult to generalize because of the different character of the various brotherhoods. There are, however, some areas of commonality. The full members of the frater­nities committed themselves in obedience to the shaykh, who initiated them into the order and bestowed upon them the patched frock (khirqah), the sign of their entry onto the Sufi path. They were encouraged to sub­ject themselves completely to the master's will, to be like dead bodies in the hands of the body-washers. Some members of orders remained celibate while oth­ers married; some lived lives of extreme poverty while others had a very comfortable existence.

Common to most of the Sufi fraternities were ritual practices called dhikr ("remembrance") and sama" ("au­dition").

Dhikr. The impetus for the practice of dhikr is derived from those Qur'anic verses that enjoin the faithful to remember God often. Among Sufis this duty evolved into a complex exercise performed by an individual or group. Many fraternities put their own particular stamp on the dhikr exercise. Most dhikr techniques, however, involve the rhythmic repetition of a phrase, often Qur'anic, in which one of the names of God appears. In Islam, Allah has one hundred names, ninety-nine of which are known; the hundredth name is hidden. Certain Sufis who ascribed to themselves the rank of qutb claimed to have been blessed with this most precious secret.

The more sophisticated methods of dhikr usually in­volve breath control, body movements, and a number of other complex techniques to gain control over the five senses as well the psyche and imagination. In some Sufi groups, such as the Naqshbandiyah, dhikr is a pri­vate exercise. The goal is to move from vocal dhikr to silent dhikr, with each stage representing a more in­tense level of union with the Beloved until, at the final stage, dhikr moves to the innermost recesses of one's being and one can no longer distinguish between the one remembering and the Remembered. [See Dhikr.]

Sama'. Like dhikr, samd^r has become identified with Sufi ritual practice. It involves listening to music, usu­ally with a group. The music is often accompanied by Qur'an chants and/or the singing of mystical poetry. The recital is intended to spark a mystical experience within the auditors. Those most affected by the samd' rise up to dance in unison with the music. Depending on the Sufi group, the dance can be a marvel of esthetic movement or the frenetic writhings of the seemingly possessed.

From its inception samd^ has been controversial among Sufis. No one questions the efficacy of chanting the Qur'an. The doubts arise with music and the singing of mystical love poetry. Music and singing were consid­ered by many shaykhs to be amoral: neither good nor evil by nature. Sama^ possesses the power, however, to engulf the spirit of the disciples and to seduce them to immoral behavior. Consequently many shaykhs, if they approve of sama' at all, insist that only accomplished Sufis be allowed to participate. Novices are warned to beware. [See Sama'.]

Dhikr and samd^ have served an important function outside of the ranks of the full-fledged members of the Sufi orders. The theoretical developments in Sufism from the thirteenth century onward were shaped by the work of Ibn 'Arabi and his interpreters. The complex and esoteric nature of this school of Sufi thought, however, placed it far beyond the reach of most Muslims. It was the ritual exercises of the orders that helped fill the gap and minister to the immediate spiritual needs of the faithful. Thus Sufism came to represent, for many, not abstruse theory but concrete practice that was accessible to all.

The emphasis on dhikr and samc has helped to blur the distinction in popular Sufism between mystical ex­perience that is attained after serious spiritual training and experience that is self-induced. Unsophisticated sessions of dhikr and samd\ to this day, often consist of self-hypnosis, hysteria, drug-induced states, and other .

violent emotions that pass for mystical experience. De­spite accusations of vulgarization, dhikr and samd' re­main important emotional outlets in the Muslim com­munity and are unique sociological events during which various levels of society find themselves interacting on an equal footing. And in the hands of spiritual adepts, dhikr and samd' remain potent tools for creating an ambiance in which to attain heightened levels of religious experience.

The widespread interest in dhikr and samd' among the Muslim faithful has resulted in increased member­ship in the Sufi fraternities. These new members, how­ever, should more properly be called affiliates. They perhaps take some training from a shaykh; their pri­mary vehicle for contact with the group, however, is at­tendance at periodic sessions of dhikr and samd'. Oth­erwise they lead the normal life of a layman or woman. In parts of the Islamic world today, membership in one Sufi order or another has become for many a social obligation, even though those so affiliated have little inter­est in. or understanding of mysticism.

Particular orders became associated with different strata of society, geographical regions, and guilds. The Suhrawardiyah, for example, were extremely influential in court circles in thirteenth-century Delhi, while orders such as the Bektashiyah and Khalwatiyah in Turkey had a more popular appeal. The identification of order with social group became so complete that one could be said to be born into a particular fraternity. This did not, however, prevent an individual's eventual shift from one order to another.

The Orders: Individual Characteristics. The role of the shaykh and the ritual exercises of dhikr and samd' are integral elements in almost all of the Sufi orders. The distinctive personalities of the fraternities, how­ever, are as significant as their similar structures and practices. The contrasts are often striking. In Anatolia, for example, the Mawlawiyah (or Mevleviye) and the Bektashiyah represent opposite ends of the spectrum.

Mawlawiyah and Bektashiyah. The Mawlawiyah trace their silsiidh to the mystic and poet Jalal al-Din Rumi. Rumi himself, however, did not establish a for­mal tariqah during his lifetime; rather, it was his son, Sultan Walad, who took upon himself the task of orga­nizing the order. The Mawlawiyah are known for their aesthetic sophistication, both in ritual practice and in mystical poetry. The order's particular identity is de­rived, of course, from Rumi's Mathnavi and the Divdn-i Shams-i Tabrizi.

Perhaps the most famous aspect of the Mawlawiyah is its ritual sama', an exquisite combination of music, poetry, and whirling dance (hence their name in the West, "Whirling Dervishes"). It is hard to capture in words the refinement of the choreography. The rhyth­mic. turning movements of the adepts are mesmerizing and executed with a subtle grace and precision equal to the best of European classical dance. The serene faces of the Sufis, moreover, reflect the depth of the spiritual rapture achieved by the practitioners.

In contrast, the Bektashiyah takes its name from a shadowy figure, Hajji Bektash of Khorasan (d. 1337?). At first the group was loosely organized, but by the fif­teenth century it had developed a highly centralized structure. The Bektashiyah are noted for their syncre­tism; the rituals and beliefs of the order represent an amalgam of Shiism. Byzantine Christianity, esoteric cults, and the like. By the end of the sixteenth century, the Bektashiyah had become associated with the Janis­sary corps, an elite military unit of slave-soldiers estab­lished by the Ottoman sultan Murad I (1360-1389). De­spite the heterodox practices of the Bektashiyah, their identification with the powerful and much-feared Jan­issaries provided them with security from persecution by the orthodox religious authorities. Where the Maw-lawiyah attracted a more educated elite, the Bektashi­yah appealed to the less literate masses who were fas­cinated with the magic-like rituals and political power.

Suhrawardiyah and Rifa'iyah. In Iraq, as well, there arose two fraternities with diametrically opposed inter­pretations of religious experience. The genealogy of the Suhrawardiyah begins with Abu al-Najib al-Suhra-wardi (d, 1168), who was a disciple of Ahmad al-Gha-zaii. Abu Najib is the author of an important rulebook for novices, Kitob oddb al-muridin (Book of the Manners of the Disciples). The text evinces Abu Najib's long ex­perience as a director; his rules are strict and compre­hensive, yet attuned to the human frailties of the young and untutored.

The fraternity that bears the name Suhrawardi was founded by Abu al-Najib's nephew. Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs 'Umar al-Suhrawardi (d. 1234). Shihab al-Din, the author of the extremely influential work, 'Awarif al­ma'arif (Masters of Mystical Insights), is remembered in Sufi circles as a great teacher. Teaching, in fact, became a characteristic note of the fraternity. The Suhrawardi­yah made significant inroads into the Indian subconti­nent, where its ranks included such important figures as Baha' al-Din Zakariya of Multan (d. 1268).

While the ethos of the Suhrawardiyah is character­ized by serious training in the classical Sufi tradition, the Rifa'iyah or "Howling Dervishes" focus primarily on dramatic ritual. This fraternity springs from the marshlands of southern Iraq. where its founder, Ahmad ibn 'Ali al-Rifa'i (d. 1182), spent most of his life. Con­temporary observers describe vividly the bizarre prac­tices engaged in by members of the fraternity: fire-eat­ing; piercing ears. hands, necks, and penises with iron rings; biting heads off live snakes, and so forth. Clearly the appeal of the Rifa'iyah is primarily emotional.

Shadhiliyah, A fine example of a fraternity that re­sponded to the religious needs of the larger community while cultivating a solid intellectual base in mystical theory is the Shadhiliyah. Abu Hasan al-Shadhili (d. 1258) began his religious career at Tunis, where he was well known as a preacher. It was there that he founded his order in 1227. Impelled by a vision, he trav­eled eastward and settled eventually in Egypt, where the Shadhiliyah order came to flourish.

The most famous of the early Shadhili shaykhs is not the founder but the third leader of the group, Ibn 'Ata' Allah (d. 1309). He was born in Alexandria and spent his early years in the study of hodith and the law. Ibn 'Ata' Allah's training in the traditional religious sciences made him wary of any involvement with Sufism. His attitude eventually mellowed, and for twelve years he placed himself under the direction of the second shaykh of the order, Abu al-'Abbas al-Mursi (d. 1287), whom he eventually succeeded.

Ibn 'Ata' Allah's writings epitomize the spirit of the Shadhiliyah order. On one hand his work is very much in the intellectual tradition of the Ibn 'Arabi school. For example his book, Lata'if al-minan (Subtle Graces), written in defense of the fraternity and its practices, emphasizes the exalted role of the shaykh as wall and qutb. On the other hand. the true genius of Ibn 'Ata' Al­lah is most evident in his collected aphorisms, the Hi-kam (Maxims). They remain to this day one of the most popular Sufi texts in the Islamic world. Combining the erudition of the scholar with the vibrant, persuasive language of the enthusiast, Ibn 'Ata' Allah succeeds in communicating complex ideas in a way that is accessi­ble to a wide range of individuals. Like the Munajat of 'Abd Allah Ansari, the Hikam of Ibn 'Ata' Allah must be savored time and time again, for their richness seems almost inexhaustable.

In the same way that Ibn 'Ata' Allah, through his writings, made the Sufism of the orders more accessible to larger numbers of Muslims, his fraternity as a whole adopted a structural form more in tune with the lives of the laity. Whereas some brotherhoods insisted on the abandonment of one's profession and even of family life, the Shadhiliyah allowed its members to remain in­volved in the secular world. In this respect, they were precursors of a similar development in the Christian West, when, in the sixteenth century, Ignatius Loyola founded the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, whose members -contrary to traditional monastic structures, were intent on fostering contemplatio in actione, contemplation while remaining fully involved in the secular world. Ibn 'Ata' Allah's Hikam has a place of honor in Islamic spir­ituality equal to that of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises in Christianity.

There is not sufficient space to describe even briefly. all of the great tanqahs that have become part of main­stream Sufism since the thirteenth century. The Qadiri-yah, whose eponymous founder, 'Abd al-Qadir Jilani (d. 1116), is perhaps the most widely revered saint in all of Islam; the Naqshbandiyah, whose stem Sunni spirit, disseminated in Central Asia and the Indian subconti­nent, has spawned political movements and great poets such as Mir Dard (d. 1785); the music-loving Chishti-yah, Kubrawiyah, and so forth—all have played pivotal roles in the formation of Islamic religious life. [See Ta-riqah for further discussion.]

Decline of the Orders. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries, however, have not been kind to Sufism, espe­cially the Sufism of the orders. A number of factors contributed to the decline: the general secularization of world culture; colonialism, with its concomitant critique of Islamic religion and society; the response of Islamic modernism; and the rise; of Islamic funda­mentalism.

The changing political climate had profound effects on the Sufi orders. In Turkey, for example, they were abolished by Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk in 1925 because they represented to him all that was corrupt and back­ward about Islam. Atatiirk was in the process of trans­forming Turkey into a modem nation state from the rubble of the Ottoman empire. The traditional power of the Sufi shaykhs and orders was incompatible with na­tionalism; the orders, therefore, were eliminated as public institutions.

At times, however, the orders were not victims of po­litical change but its instigators. The Tijaniyah of West Africa and the Sanusiyah of North Africa are prime ex­amples. The Tijaniyah were militant revivalists. They fought bravely against the French in West Africa and eventually established a kingdom of their own during the latter part of the nineteenth century.

The Sanusiyah were similarly fundamentalist and militant. For decades they were at odds with Italian co­lonial power in North Africa. As a counterbalance they sided with the British who eventually invested the shaykh of the Sanusiyah with authority in the region. The transformation of the shaykh into king of Libya and the accompanying solidification of political power even­tually led to the decline of the Sanusiyah as a Sufi movement.

Despite the fact that many nineteenth- and twentieth-century Sufi groups reflected fundamentalist tenden­cies, they still became the objects of attack by the ultra-orthodox, of whom the Wahhabiyah of Saudi Arabia are?

but one example. Among such groups, any ritual prac­tice not explicitly sanctioned by religious law is anath­ema. The very premise on which Sufism is based, namely union with God, is rejected as un-Islamic. We see today in many of the most vibrant Islamic revivalist movements a similar tendency to espouse the most pu­ritanical forms of literalist religion. In such a world Su­fism has little place.

In the Indian subcontinent, the involvement of many hereditary pirs (i.e., shaykhs) with Sufism has been based, in the modem period, more on family status, wealth, and influence than on any serious interest in mysticism. A backlash was inevitable. Muhammad Iqbal, one of the fathers of modem Muslim intellectual life in the subcontinent, rejected Sufism because of the corruption he perceived. He also reacted strongly against the Sufi doctrine of wahdat al-wujud, because it entailed the negation of the self: if the self is nonexis­tent, why confront the problems of human existence? Nevertheless, his Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, published in 1930, reflects Sufi emphases on in-teriority, although his goal was to reinterpret Islam in humanistic terms that harmonized the spiritual and material realms of existence.

Attacks on Sufism are not new; they have occurred throughout the history of the tradition. The dramatic decline of Sufism in the modem period, however, is due as much to external as to internal forces. The intimate contacts between the Islamic world and the European West resulted in virulent critiques of Islamic religious practice, especially devotionalism. Muslim reactions were varied: some accepted the critique and mimicked Western secular societies (Atatiirk's Turkey, for exam­ple); some reasserted their identity by returning to what was believed to be true Islam, devoid of Sufi accretions (the Wahhabiyah, for example); others, such as the Mus­lim modernist Muhammad "Abduh and his successors, proposed various more moderate plans for the adapta­tion of Muslim society to the demands of the modem world.

All of these responses, however, possessed anti-Sufi elements, for most rejected Sufiritual practice and de­votionalism as either non-Muslim or antimodem. More­over, the power of the Sufi shaykhs over masses of the faithful was seen by most to be counterproductive to modernization and to the development of a functioning secular state, for the shaykhs were often perceived as proponents of superstition, religious emotionalism, and outmoded power structures.

Mysticism in modem Islam is not an arid wasteland but rather more like a fallow field. There have been important modem teaching shaykhs such as Ahmad al-'Alawi (d. 1934), whose influence is still felt in North Africa. Moreover, the popular piety of Sufism still flourishes in many parts of the Islamic world, including North Africa, Egypt, the Indian subcontinent, and Indonesia. The great tradition of vernacular poetry, established by master artists such as the Turkish mystic Yu-nus Emre (d. 1321), continues to produce a rich literature. Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Africa, Indonesia—every comer of the Islamic world has pro­duced its local poet-saints.

Doubtless Sufism has become increasingly more iden­tified with popular ritual practice than with formal spiritual training. The transformation of Sufism into a mass movement could not help but lead to a certain vulgarization. There continue to arise, nevertheless, in­dividual masters whose commitment to the path is rem­iniscent of the great figures of the classical period. Clas­sical Sufi literature survives because it still has the ability to touch the spirits of modem men and women. It is in this continued interaction between shaykh and murid that hope for the future of Sufism resides.

[See also the biographies of al-Ghazali, al-Hallaj Ibn 'Arabi, Rumi, and the other figures mentioned herein. For some aspects of Sufism not covered in the text, see Mawlid; Mi'raj; Nubuwah; and Nur Muhammad.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

By far the best introduction to Sufism in English is Anne-marie SchimmeFs Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1975). Other introductory texts of interest are A. J. Ar-berry's Sufism: An Account of the Mystics of Islam (1950; re­print, London, 1979) and Reynold A. Nicholson's The Mystics of Islam (1914; reprint, London, 1963). The most astute treatment of the development of early Sufism, especially its relationship to Qur'anic exegesis, is Paul Nwyia's Exegese coranique et lan­guage mystique (Beirut, 1970).

There are a number of monographs dealing with one or other of the early Sufi ascetics. Margaret Smith's two works, Rabi 'a the Mystic and Her Fellow-Saints in Islam (Cambridge, 1928) and An Early Mystic of Baghdad: A Study of the Life and Teaching of Harith b. Asad Al-Muhasibi, A.D. 781-A.D. 857 (1935, reprint. New York, 1973), are both excellent, as well as Nicholson's study of Abu Sa'id ibn Abi al-Khayr in Studies in Islamic Mysticism (1921; reprint, Cambridge, 1976).

There are two excellent English translations of Sufi man­uals, Nicholson's translation of al-Hujwiii's Kashf al-Mahjub:

The Oldest Persian Treatise on Sufism, 2d ed. (London, 1936), and Arberry's translation of al-Kalabadhfs Kitdb al-ta'arruf un-der the title The Doctrine of the Sufis (Cambridge, 1935). Sev­eral chapters of Seyyed Hossein Nasr's Sufi Essays (London, 1972) deal with stations and states and the master-disciple re­lationship.

No study of the ecstatics in Sufism is complete without Louis Massignon's extraordinary work on al-Hallaj, recently translated into English by Herbert Mason as The Passion ofAl-

Hallaj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam, 4 vols. (Princeton, 1982). Carl W. Ernst's Words of Ecstasy in Sufism (Albany, 1984) is  extremely helpful as well. Reynold A. Nicholson's The Idea of Personality in Sufism (1964; reprint, Lahore, 1970) is a lucid exploration of the psychology of ecstatic utterances.

There is an excellent translation by Wheeler Thackston of Ansari's Mundjat in The Book of Wisdom and Intimate Conver­sations, translated and edited by Wheeler Thackston and Vic­tor Danner (New York, 1978). The premier scholar of Ansari is Serge de Laugier de Beaurecueil, whose bibliography of Ansari provides much useful information and some fine translations:

Khwadja 'Abdullah Ansari, 396-81 H./1006-1089: Mystique hanbalite (Beirut, 1965). There are a number of fine translations of 'Attar's mathnavis:

The Ildhi-nama or Book of God, translated by J. A. Boyle (Man­chester, 1976); Le livre de I'epreuve (Musibatndma), translated by Isabelle de Gastines (Paris. 1981); and The Conference of the Birds, translated by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis (Lon­don, 1984). The best comprehensive study of 'Attar and his work remains Helmut Ritter's dos Meer, der Seele (Leiden, 1955).

Henry Corbin has written extensively on Islamic gnosticism, Islamic Neoplatonism, and Ibn 'Arabi. Works such as Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi (Princeton, 1969) dem­onstrate his extraordinary erudition and propose provocative syntheses that must be evaluated with care. A new translation of Ibn *Arabfs Fusus al-hikam by R. W. J. Austin under the title The Bezels of Wisdom (New York. 1980) is excellent. Toshihiko Izutsu's comparative study of Sufism and Taoism, A Compara­tive Study of the Key Philosophical Concepts in Sufism and Taoism (Tokyo, 1966), also serves as an excellent introduction to Ibn 'Arabi's thought. Finally, in his Studies in Islamic Mys­ticism (1921; reprint, Cambridge. 1976) Reynold A. Nicholson provides a very lucid analysis of the idea of the Perfect Human Being as it originated with Ibn *Arabi and was later developed byal-Jili.

The best translations of Rumi's work are by Reynold A. Nich­olson, especially The Mathnawl of Jalalu'ddin Rumi, 8 vols. (London, 1925-1971). Annemarie Schimmel's The Triumphal Sun: A Study of the Works ofJalaloddin Rumi (London, 1978) is a solid introduction to his writings, as is William C. Chittick's The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi (Albany. 1983). Schimmel's As Through a Veil: Mystical Poetry in Islam (New York, 1982) places Rumi in the wider context of the po­etic tradition in Sufism.

There are many studies of individual Sun orders. The best general work, however, is J. Spencer Trimingham's The Sufi Orders in Islam (New York, 1971). The role of the fraternities in the Indian subcontinent is extremely well presented in Anne­marie Schimmel's Islam in the Indian Subcontinent (Leiden, 1980). An English translation by Victor Danner of Ibn *Ata' Al­lah's Hikam can be found in Thackston and Danner's The Book of Wisdom and Intimate Conversations (cited above). A superb French translation and commentary of the same text, together with a thorough analysis of the early development of the Sha-dhiliyah can be found in Paul Nwyia's Ibn 'Ata' Allah et la nais-sance de la confrerie Sadilite (Beirut, 1972).