Quaestiones Infinitae

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Seeing God in This World and the Otherworld: Crossing Boundaries in Sufi Commentaries on the Qurʾān

God Zien in Deze Wereld en de Andere Wereld: Grenzen Overschrijden in Soeficommentaren op de Koran (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands)

Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof. dr. G.J. van der Zwaan, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 11 september 2015 des ochtends te 10.30 uur

door

Pieter Coppens

geboren op 31 juli 1983 te Ølgod, Denemarken Promotor: Prof. dr. C.R. Lange

Dit proefschrift werd mogelijk gemaakt met financiële steun van de Netherlands Interuniversity School for Islamic Studies (NISIS). Acknowledgements

As is said, “Man lam yashkur al-nās lam yashkur Allāh.” There are many people who supported me along the way that I am indebted and grateful to.

My Doktorvater Prof. Christian R. Lange has been stimulating and generous with his time. He created a constructive environment for our research group and facilitated good scholarly interaction. He provided us with unique opportunities in the form of conferences,

“heidesessies” and reading sessions. I am very much aware that not every PhD candidate has this share of luck.

The other members of our HHIT research group –senior researcher Simon O’Meara, and my fellow PhD candidates Eric van Lit and Yunus Yaldiz- were wonderful colleagues who at several occasions provided sharp and valuable feedback on my thinking and writing.

I owe a lot to the members of our weekly reading group, who meticulously read my sometimes obscure sources. Prof. Bernd Radtke deserves special mention for his patience in reading Persian sources with me.

I am indebted to the NISIS board for their confidence in me and their generous scholarship. The NISIS staff has organized very useful schools, and offered a sublime learning environment. Also my fellow NISIS PhD candidates, Ammeke, Annemarie,

Istiqomah, Maryse, Mehmet, Monica, Nuril, Sunarwoto and Zoltan, I wish to thank for their excellent scholarly company. I hope that we have shaped the contours of a new scholarly generation in the Netherlands together.

I am grateful to Fulbright for giving me the opportunity to spend four months at

Yale University in the illuminating company of Prof. Gerhard Böwering. The seminar I followed with him was very beneficial, and I owe a lot to our conversations and his comments on my writings. He was a true mentor. The company of his students Yousef

i Casewit, Ryan Brizendine, Mareike Koertner and Samuel Ross was both valuable and pleasant. Moustafa Moustafa was a wonderful friend at lonely moments overseas.

I also wish to thank Prof. Harald Motzki and Prof. Kees Versteegh, first of all for teaching me proper Arabic and philological skills at my alma mater, without which I couldn’t have completed this thesis. But I am most grateful to them for trusting in my academic abilities.

İlim Yayma Vakfı, with Eyup Ensar Özturk as my host, was a wonderful place to stay during my manuscript research in Istanbul. Kadir Gömbeyaz, Veysel Kaya and Cihad Caner were good friends in Istanbul, and were a great help in retrieving manuscripts.

My closest friends Anel, Arjan and Assia deserve a special mention for being critical friends, meanwhile always believing in me and my abilities.

The love and care of my own family and of my family in law were of great support: the Güveli posse, my grandmother (“Ik dacht dat we daar geen commentaar op mochten hebben”), and my ever more successful sister Marliek.

Most of all I wish to thank my mother and father, Mirjam and Ben. I’ll never forget how disappointed I was when you forbade me to go to teacher training college and demanded from me to study at university level. Maybe now is the right moment to admit that you were right. Because of your hard work I never had to worry about anything during my studies. Although you didn’t always understand which stars I was exactly chasing, you supported me all along and believed in my capacities. May you receive kindness just as you took care of me.

And, of course, Melek. I’ll save my words of appreciation for more intimate moments. May our marriage always remain a tajallī of mawadda and raḥma.

ii Table of Contents

List of abbreviations 5 Introduction 7 Main questions and objectives 8 The study of Sufism in its circles of influence: some notes on nomenclature 13 Sufism and ‘orthodoxy’, periphery and centre? 21 History and eschatology in early Sufism 26 What is a ‘Sufi’ Qur’ān commentary? Defining the genre 31 Using tafsīr as a source for intellectual history: some notes on method and sources 35 Dissertation outline 43 1 Sufi commentaries from the 4th/10th to the 7th/13th centuries: the rise of a genre 47 1 Introduction 47 2 Nishapur in the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh century 48 2.1 Social and political background 49 2.2 The religious scene 50 2.3 Religious education 52 2.4 The position of Sufism 54 2.5 Nishapur and the rise to prominence of the genre of tafsīr 57 3 Al-Sulamī and his commentary: witness to the formative period of Sufism 59 3.1 His life, education and works 59 3.2. His commentaries: self-definition 60 3.3. His commentaries: practice 66 4 Al-Qushayrī and his commentary 70 4.1 His life, education and works 70 4.2. His Sufi commentary Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt 72 5 Maybudī and his commentary 75 5.1 His life, education and works 75 5.2 His commentary Kashf al-asrār wa-ʿuddat al-abrār 77 6 Al-Daylamī and his commentary 80 6.1 Who was Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī? 80 6.2 His commentary Taṣdīq al-maʿārif 85 7 Rūzbihān al-Baqlī and his commentary 86 7.1 His life, education and works 86 7.2 His commentary ʿArāʾis al-bayān fī ḥaqāʾiq al-qurʾān 88 8 Conclusion 90

1 2 The ultimate boundary crossing: Paradise and Hell in the commentaries 93 1 Introduction 93 2 Attitudes towards the hereafter in the formative period of Sufism 93 3 Eschatological commentary of al-Sulamī’s major sources 96 3.1 Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/756) 96 3.2 Dhū al-Nūn al-Miṣrī (d. 246/861) 98 3.3 Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896) 100 3.4 Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz (d. 286/899) 106 3.5 Al-Junayd al-Baghdādī (d. 298/910) 107 3.6 Ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Ādamī (d. 309/922) 109 3.7 Quotes from other authorities 110 3.8 Conclusions 112 4 Eschatological commentary in al-Qushayrī’s Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt 112 5 Hierarchies in the hereafter: Maybudī 117 6 Paradise as ṣadaqa and shirk: al-Daylamī’s Taṣdīq al-maʿārif 122 7 Eschatological commentary in Rūzbihān’s ʿArāʾis al-bayān 130 7.1 Hell in the commentary of Rūzbihān 130 7.2 Paradise in the commentary of Rūzbihān 134 8 Conclusion 143 3 The first boundary crossing: Adam descending 149 1 Introduction 149 2 Adam in the Qurʾān 152 3 The banishment of Adam in tafsīr, narrative religious literature and theology 153 4 The banishment of Adam in Sufism: non-tafsīr sources 158 5 Loss of nearness and vision: the tafsīr of al-Sulamī 162 6 Teaching good manners: the banishment in al-Qushayrī 165 7 Elevation through degradation: the banishment in Maybudī 168 8 The banishment in al-Daylamī 172 9 The banishment in Rūzbihān 173 9.1 The creation of Adam and the conference of the angels 173 9.2 The dwelling in Paradise and the ‘slip’ 178 9.3 The exile from Paradise and the sojourn in this-worldly life 183 9.4 Conclusion 184 10 Conclusion 185 4 Excursus: embodying the vision of God in theology and Sufism 189 1 Introduction 189 2 Theological discussions on the vision of God 192 3 A typology of this-worldly vision in early Sufism 196 4 The commentators on the vision of God in their non-tafsīr works 204

2 4.1 Al-Qushayrī 205 4.2 Al-Daylamī 206 4.3 Rūzbihān 209 5 Conclusion 214 5 Arinī: declined at the boundary? 217 1 Introduction 217 2 Arinī anẓur ilayk: Q7:143 between exegesis and theology 220 3 Polyvalence: the early Sufi readings in al-Sulamī 226 4 From sobriety to intoxication: al-Qushayrī reading Moses 233 5 Vision of the heart as a foretaste of Paradise: Maybudī 235 6 Vision through annihilation (fanāʾ): al-Daylamī 236 7 Indirect vision through God’s attributes and acts: Rūzbihān 238 8 Conclusion 242 6 A vision at the utmost boundary 245 1 Introduction 245 2 The Qurʾān and the night journey 247 3 Divine or angelic manifestation: readings of Surah al-Najm 248 4 Vision and nearness: al-Sulamī 257 5 Angelic manifestation: al-Qushayrī 258 6 Muhammad surpassing Moses: Maybudī 261 7 Muhammad’s light entering God’s world: al-Daylamī 263 8 God seeing God: Rūzbihān’s vision through unification (ittiḥād) 264 9 Conclusion 272 Conclusion 277 Bibliography 289 Manuscripts 289 Unpublished sources 289 Primary Sources 290 Secondary sources 295 Samenvatting in het Nederlands 317 Curriculum Vitae 327

3 4 List of abbreviations

BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

CHI5 The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. V, The Saljuq and Mongol Periods. Edited by J. A. Boyle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.

EI2 The Encyclopaedia of Islam: New Edition. 12 vols. Edited by H. A. R. Gibb et al. Leiden: Brill, 1954-2004.

EI3 The Encyclopaedia of Islam: THREE. Edited by Kate Fleet et al. Leiden: Brill, 2007-. Online publication.

EIr Encyclopaedia Iranica. Edited by Ehsan Yarshater et al. Bibliotheca Persica Press, 1985-. Online publication.

EQ The Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an. 5 vols. Edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe et al. Leiden: Brill, 2001-6

ER2 Encyclopedia of Religion: Second Edition. Edited by Lindsay Jones. 14 vols. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005.

IJMES International Journal of Middle East Studies

JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society

JQS Journal of Qur’anic Studies

JSS Journal of Sufi Studies

SI Studia Islamica

TG Ess, Josef van. Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra: Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam. Berlin-New York: de Gruyter, 1991-97.

ZDMG Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft

5 6 Introduction

The tafsīr attributed to the early Islamic mystic Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896) mentions a story of Sahl leading the night prayer before his students. When he recites the verse and their Lord gives them a pure drink (Q76:21) he moves his mouth as if he is drinking. When his students afterwards ask him whether he was drinking something during prayer, he answers: “By

God, if I had not experienced its taste when I recited it as if I was drinking it, I would not have acted so.”1 Elsewhere in the tafsīr another example of this-worldly consumption of a paradisiacal delight is mentioned. While on a seashore a friend of God (walī) offers Sahl a pomegranate from Paradise to eat. When he eats it, the walī in astonishment says: “Receive glad tidings of Paradise, for I did not know your rank before you ate it; no one eats of the food of Paradise in this life except the people of Paradise.”2

These two anecdotes testify to the fact that in early Islamic mysticism forms of boundary crossing of the otherworld into this world by mystical senses were considered conceivable: in both stories an experience of a taste (dhawq) of the delights of Paradise is claimed. In the first story it is the contemplation and recitation of a Qurʾānic verse in prayer that evokes this experience: the Qurʾān is employed by the author to be at the heart of the taste of the paradisiacal drink. These two stories from the Qurʾān commentary attributed to Sahl raise several questions on the nature of Sufi conceptions of the boundary between the here and the hereafter, as well as on the place, role and function of the

Qurʾānic text within Sufi imaginations of this boundary. It also shows that works of tafsīr composed by Sufis may be a rich source to come to a better understanding of Sufi conceptions of the relation between the here and the hereafter. It is these issues that we

1 Sahl al-Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Tustarī, trans. Annabel Keeler and Ali Keeler, Tafsīr al-Tustarī (Louisville:

Fons Vitae, 2011), 260.

2 Ibid., 15.

7 will address in this dissertation. In the remainder of this introduction, I will further specify and contextualize these main issues, and discuss some issues of terminology, theory and method attached to them. In so doing I will review the salient contributions to each of these themes in the secondary literature.

Main questions and objectives

This study has two main objectives, which are complementary and mutually inform each other. Firstly, it aims to write a history of Sufi conceptions of the hereafter in what Marshall

Hodgson defined as the Islamic Earlier Middle Period (950-1250 CE).3 Secondly, it aims to come to a better understanding of five Sufi Qurʾān commentaries hailing from the same period. The complementarity of these two subjects lies in the expectation that the vast and little studied material available in Sufi commentaries will prove to be a valuable source for reconstructing Sufi conceptions of the hereafter in this period, while simultaneously the case study of Sufi eschatology serves as a good tool to learn more about the development and characteristics of this genre of commentaries on the Qurʾān in the same period.

As for the aspect of Sufi eschatology, the central point of interest in this study is the boundary crossing from this world to the otherworld and vice versa in the form of the vision of God. In a forthcoming study on the Islamic hereafter Christian Lange contends that typical of Muslim conceptions of the hereafter is that the boundary between the two abodes is “rather thin and porous” and oftentimes crossed, and that “the otherworld is in a continuous and intimate conversation with the world of the here-and-now.”4 In this study I

3 Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization (Chicago: The

University of Chicago Press, 1974), II, 6-7.

4 Christian R. Lange, Paradise and Hell in Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming

2015), intr.

8 pursue the hypothesis that this is also and even more the case for Sufi conceptions of the otherworld. I explore the possibility that in the case of Sufism this boundary crossing revolves especially, though not exclusively, around the topic of the meeting with and vision of God. In Sufi imaginations, the otherworld is, as I will suggest, primarily conceived to be the domain of meeting with God, communion with Him and vision of Him. While most

Sunni traditionists and theologians have restricted the vision of God to specific moments in

Paradise, in some Sufi imaginations this vision becomes eternal and uninterrupted. The hereafter is thus God-centered: the enjoyments of Paradise become but mere veils to this encounter with God, while the punishment of Hell consists of being deprived from nearness to and vision of Him.

Some Sufis have also considered nearness to and vision of God to be the main characteristics of the primordial Paradise inhabited by Adam. With Adam’s banishment from this primordial Paradise, humankind was deprived of these characteristics: this- worldly life then means to be deprived of His nearness and of vision of Him. For some Sufis, especially within those strands of Sufism that stress the passionate love (ʿishq) of and longing (shawq) for God, the longing for this meeting with and vision of God in the hereafter was purportedly so strong that they wished to attain it in this world. Some of the stations and states that they claimed to attain during this-worldly life thus took the form of a ‘taste’ of the otherworldly encounter with God.

To support these claimed experiences, some Sufi scholars have theologically argued that God may also be seen in this world: the highest reward of Paradise is brought into the present. Two Qurʾānic narratives were often used to legitimize their viewpoint on this issue, centered around two prophetic models: Moses’ request to see God during his seclusion on

Mount Sinai (Q7:143), and Muhammad’s contested visionary encounter with God during his night journey, read into Q53:1-18. These two Qurʾānic passages will form two case studies of boundary crossing during this-worldly life in separate chapters in this study (Chapter Five

9 and Six), together with Sufi conceptions of the first boundary crossing, that is, the banishment of Adam from primordial Paradise (Chapter Three) and the final boundary crossing of humankind to the hereafter (Chapter Two).

As for the Sufi Qurʾān commentaries, our main point of interest is the relation with contemporary ‘conventional’ strands of exegesis, and the question of genealogy and originality. Concerning the first issue, we position ourselves in the historicist and constructivist approach to mysticism, as posed by Steven Katz in a series of essays.5 Along the lines of this approach we argue that to make sense of the contents of Sufi commentaries, a mere description of ideas and systems of thought of individual authors does not suffice. One has to take into account the broader milieu in which these texts were written and read, and analyze the genealogy of their ideas and systems of thought. Sufi authors did not operate in a vacuum, and Sufism does not transcend or is separable from the broader religious tradition from which it emerged. These authors and texts can thus only be properly understood within their broader religious and historical context. By juxtaposing the themes discussed in Sufi Qurʾān commentaries with other current traditionist and theological narratives in ‘conventional’ works of tafsīr, we can come to a better understanding of the relation between Sufism and its broader religious tradition, and how they mutually influence each other. Our interest in the issue of genealogy and originality is driven by claims in recent scholarship that the genre of tafsīr is essentially

5 Steven T. Katz, “The ‘Conservative’ Character of Mysticism,” in Mysticism and Religious Traditions, ed.

Steven T. Katz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 3-60; Steven T. Katz, “Mysticism and the

Interpretation of Sacred Scripture,” in Mysticism and Sacred Scripture, ed. Steven T. Katz (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2000), 7-67; Cf. Niklaus Largier, “Mysticism, Modernity and the Invention of

Aesthetic Experience,” Representations 105, no. 1 (2009): 37-60; Elliot R. Wolfson, Through a Speculum that Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1997), 52-8.

10 genealogical and conservative in nature: a commentator will only carefully express his own opinion against the backdrop of earlier traditions and opinions.6 Whether this notion of genealogy equally applies to Sufi tafsīr still has to be considered: it clashes with the general perception of Sufi hermeneutics being determined by ‘experience’, which suggests a higher level of subjectivity and of originality. The question is to which extent the genre of Sufi tafsīr carries the same genealogical characteristics as other more conventional genres of tafsīr, or whether Sufi readings of the Qurʾān indeed result in more subjective and ‘original’ commentaries on the Qurʾānic text.

The academic study of Sufi works of tafsīr is important for another, more general reason. Until this date there is no academic work available that maps the genre of tafsīr in all its aspects and depicts a longue durée history of the genre of tafsīr through the centuries.

Goldziher’s pioneering endeavor in this field evidently deserves mention and is impressive considering the limited amount of works available to him in his age, but it is outdated in many respects. Much has changed in the field, and his Richtungen der islamischen

Koranauslegung cannot count as a proper history or overview work. The field is in dire need of a new standard work.7

6 Walid Saleh, The Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition: The Qur’ān Commentary of Al-Thaʿlabī (d.

427/1035) (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 9, 14-5; Jane D. McAuliffe, Qurʾānic Christians: An Analysis of Classical and

Modern Exegesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 291.

7 Ignaz Goldziher, Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung: an der Universität Upsala gehaltene

Olaus-Petri-Vorlesungen (Leiden: Brill, 1970). This was already noted by Andrew Rippin in 1982: “One of the surprising elements in tafsīr studies is that we still lack a general introduction to the genre as a whole. (…) The other point which needs attention is the production of a historical synthesis of

Islamic exegesis to finally replace Goldziher’s Richtungen.” Andrew Rippin, “The Present Status of

Tafsīr Studies,” The Muslim World 72, no. 3-4 (1982): 237-38. Three decades later the same still holds true, although a lot more publications on the subject of tafsīr are available.

11 For a comprehensive understanding of the history of tafsīr we are therefore not only dependent on the various single studies produced by scholars in Western academic contexts but also on modern and contemporary works from Muslim authors writing from a specific normative background. These works are often influenced by ideological selections and categorizations, in which Sufi works of tafsīr do not always have a place as a matter of course.8 Our dependence on these works is problematic, and leaves us with the risk of an implicit normative and reductionist understanding of the history of the genre, often a normativity which leaves Sufism out of the picture. To achieve a complete, non-ideological and non-reductionist understanding of the history of the genre in the future, that pays proper attention to its inner dynamics and its diversity, it is necessary to come to a good understanding of the place of Sufi Qurʾān commentaries within this history. Ultimately, this research hopes to contribute to the history of this subgenre within the larger genre of tafsīr literature, thus giving it its proper place within the larger history of tafsīr that still remains to be written.

The importance of studying Sufi eschatology also deserves to be explained in more conceptually broad terms. A study of eschatology is not merely a study of the human imagination, it is also, or perhaps even more, a study of anthropology: eschatology is not only about what humans expect will happen in the hereafter, it also influences how they conceive of their lives in the here, their sense of identity, what meanings and purposes they

8 Walid Saleh has convincingly shown how normative and ideological choices play an important role in the selections and representations made in modern historiographies of tafsīr from the Arabic and

Muslim world, and how this influences the categorizations and conceptual frameworks utilized in the academic study of the genre. He has also pointed out how ideological choices in the printing of works of tafsīr in the time of the rise of the printing press in the Arab world has distorted our understanding of the history of the genre. Walid Saleh, “Preliminary Remarks on the Historiography of tafsīr in Arabic: A History of the Book Approach,” JQS 12 (2010): 6-11.

12 ascribe to their lives, how they value this-worldly life, and ultimately how they structure their lives in the this-worldly realm. In the case of Sufism then, eschatology is not only about what to expect in the hereafter, it is also, or even more, about the question what it means to become a complete human being (insān kāmil) in this world, and thus how to rise in the spiritual hierarchy of believers. Sufi imaginations of the hereafter and ideas on soteriology may thus have very tangible consequences for power structures and hierarchies in societies in which Sufism plays a significant role. It is therefore my hope that this study not only proves to be useful to historians of religion, but that it also provides valuable historical data for anthropologists. Sufism is of course not only an old tradition of books, but is a lived reality for many communities worldwide. In this study the social and political implications of the eschatological imagination and the spiritual authority that a claimed this-worldly vision of God provides within religious communities can only be hinted at, and cannot be delved into more deeply due to a lack of concrete data. For anthropologists it may be very worthwhile to see the practical implications of conceptions of the hereafter and claims of the vision of God in Sufi communities.9

The study of Sufism in its circles of influence: some notes on nomenclature

In the above mentioned story of Sahl, he is tasting the pure drink from Paradise while performing the night prayer in congregation and reciting the Qurʾān.10 This embedding of

9 A good recent example of this is Benedikt Pontzen who has researched claims of seeing God and construction of spiritual authority among the Tijaniyya in Asante, Ghana. Benedikt Pontzen, “On

‘Seeing God’ and its Ambiguities: Religious Claims and Counterclaims among Muslims in Asante,

Ghana” (unpublished paper, 2015).

10 Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Tustarī (trans. Keeler and Keeler), 260. In this passage the night prayer is not named by its most common name ʿishāʾ, but with the more rare ʿatma, the use of which is attributed

13 the claimed mystical experience in a conventional ritual like the congregational prayer and the intimate relation of the perceived experience to recital of the text of the Qurʾān is not a coincidence: it shows that the mystical realm is considered to be deeply embedded within the teachings and practices of the broader religious tradition. This may sound obvious to the contemporary reader, but for long this was not considered self-evident in the academic study of mysticism. In religious studies there has been a vivid debate on the nature of mysticism and its relation to religious traditions. The study of mysticism has long been dominated by an essentialist approach that portrays mysticism as perennial and a-historic: in this view mysticism transcends prevailing cultural, intellectual and theological norms, as well as historical and social influences.11 Moreover, mysticism has often been portrayed as radically anti-dogmatic and as a departure from ‘orthodoxy.’12 During the last three decades this approach has been increasingly contested. It has been argued that mysticism is in fact highly influenced by its historical context, that the mystical is always mediated and

to the Bedouins (aʿrāb) in a ḥadīth. Whether this is a suitable term to be used for the night prayer is a discussion in Islamic jurisprudence due to this ḥadīth. Cf. Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, K. al-adab, Bāb fī ṣalāt al-

ʿatma, no. 78. Edward W. Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon (London and Edinburgh: Williams and

Norgate, 1863-), 1949.

11 Seyyed H. Nasr for example gives one of his chapters the subtitle “Reflections on the

Manifestation of Sufism in Time and Space,” stating in that chapter that “it is necessary to recall how important it is to escape the entrapment of historicism in order to understand a reality that transcends time and history.” Sufism is here portrayed to have a reified perennial existence: it is not determined by history, its reality transcends history and merely manifests itself differently within the particularities of a certain age. Its essence perennially remains the same in this conception.

Seyyed H. Nasr, The Garden of Truth: the Vision and Promise of Sufism, Islam’s Mystical Tradition (New

York: Harper One, 2007), 164.

12 For an overview, typology and criticism of such approaches see ER2, s.v. Mysticism [Further

Considerations], IX, 6355-359 (Peter Moore).

14 can only be understood by taking the broader context into consideration. In addition, several scholars have argued that mysticism in general is firmly grounded in the sacred scriptures and languages of its religious traditions, and much more rooted in ‘orthodoxy’ and determined by its socio-religious milieu than was generally believed.13 This debate can be considered as a continuum with on the one tail end perennialist universalism, and on the other tail end ‘hard’ constructivism. In between these two poles different types of arguments can be found that try to define a middle way between these two tail ends.14

Part of this problem of decontextualization of mysticism is the way the term taṣawwuf is translated into European languages. It is commonly, but debatably,

‘translated’ with ‘Sufism’ or with ‘Islamic mysticism.’15 The term ‘Sufism’ as a translation of taṣawwuf may feel natural and is indeed very commonly used, but is problematic to a certain

13 Katz, Mysticism and Sacred Scripture; Katz, Mysticism and Religious Traditions; Steven T. Katz, ed.,

Mysticism and Language (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Richard King, Orientalism and

Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and ‘The Mystic East’ (London & New York: Routledge, 1999).

14 For a typology and some examples of these middle ways see Jerome Gellman, “Mysticism,” in The

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, accessed February 1,

2015, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/mysticism; Wolfson, Speculum, 52-8.

15 The issue of translating the technical vocabulary of Sufis reaches further than this term. When working with Sufi texts one is confronted with the problem that often equivalents from (the study of) Christian mysticism are used, concepts and terms that have their own genealogy within a different religious tradition (e.g. ‘Saints’ for awliyāʾ). In this study such equivalents are avoided as much as possible. We have tried to stay as close as possible to their literal meanings in Arabic. Cf.

Sara Sviri, “Sufism: Reconsidering Terms, Definitions and Processes in the Formative Period of

Islamic Mysticism,” in Les maîtres soufis et leurs disciples. IIIe-Ve siècles de l’hégire (IXe-XIe s.).

Enseignement, formation et transmission, eds. Geneviève Gobillot and Jean-Jacques Thibon (Beirut:

Institut Français du Proche-Orient, 2012), 17-34; Barbara R. von Schlegell, “Translating Sufism,” JAOS

122, no. 3 (2002): 578-86.

15 extent. Some have argued that the suffix -ism reifies taṣawwuf as a mystical trend that has a separate existence from Islam, and is not simply a discipline of religious learning like kalām or fiqh within Islam, be it with other goals and methods.16 Carl Ernst for example has convincingly shown how this new -ism was introduced by British orientalists of the 18th and

19th centuries in their description of Sufism in order to denote a mystical trend in the

Muslim world that had no intrinsic relation with Islam: “The religious and political imperatives of modern Europe had created the term, which was duly entered in the list of doctrines and philosophies deserving the suffix –ism.”17 Ernst however also notes that it has become a widely used standard term, whether we like it or not.18 I agree that it is difficult to avoid using the term completely, if only because using the Arabic equivalent taṣawwuf throughout a dissertation is tiring for the eyes. The term having become so common and almost unavoidable as a descriptive category, it suffices to be consciously aware of the conceptual history of the term, and not to be lured into the pitfall of considering this –ism as essentially separate from or even in opposition to Islam, or into other forms of essentialism.

16 This can perhaps even stronger be felt in the German ‘translation’ of taṣawwuf used by Richard

Gramlich. He uses the suffix –tum, which evokes the association of a ‘Sufitum’ as a religion besides

‘Judentum’ and ‘Christentum.’ Richard Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder des Sufitums, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden:

Harrassowitz Verlag, 1995-96).

17 Carl W. Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism: An Essential Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of the Mystical Tradition of Islam (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1997), 16. Linda Sijbrand has pointed out that also these orientalists did not form their ideas on Sufism in a vacuum, and were influenced by anti-Sufi tendencies within the Islamic world itself that also considered Sufism to be outside the realm of Islam. Linda Sijbrand, “Orientalism and Sufism: an overview,” in Orientalism Revisited: Art,

Land and Voyage, ed. Ian R. Netton (London: Routledge, 2013), 98-114.

18 Ernst, Shambhala Guide, 18-9.

16 The use of the term ‘mysticism’ is perhaps even more complicated and needs an even greater awareness of the ideological underpinnings of its conceptual history. When we look at the most prominent introductory handbooks to the study of Sufism, the prominence of the term ‘mysticism’ immediately catches the eye: “Mystical Dimensions of Islam”

(Annemarie Schimmel), “Mystical Islam: An Introduction to Sufism” (Julian Baldick), “An

Introduction to Islamic Mysticism” (Alexander Knysh).19 Apparently the idea that taṣawwuf is indeed the ‘mystical’ dimension of Islam is quite widespread. However, in recent scholarship on Sufism we can find vivid reflection on whether we do justice to the tradition of taṣawwuf by applying a term to it that has a conceptual history in a different tradition.20

This needs deeper reflection. What do we mean by the term mysticism, and what is the conceptual history of the term? What relation to religion, and what concept of religion does it imply? I’m not so much interested in whether the term is an accurate translation (it is not a translation after all), but more in how our employment of the term shapes our expectation of what Sufism is or should be, and what issues it deals with or should deal with.

Several authors have pointed out how modern perceptions of the term ‘mysticism’ have been shaped by Protestantism and the Enlightenment, and thus have ideological presuppositions that hinder a non-ideological and non-reductionist study of traditions such as taṣawwuf. For example Richard King has stated that “the prevailing attitudes and presuppositions we have about mysticism are culturally specific and ultimately derive from the philosophical presuppositions of Western thought since the Enlightenment.”21 King

19 Julian Baldick, Mystical Islam: An Introduction to Sufism (London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 1989);

Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina

Press, 1975); Alexander D. Knysh, Islamic Mysticism: A Short History (Leiden: Brill, 2000).

20 Cf. Sviri, “Reconsidering Terms”; Ernst, Shambhala Guide, 1-31.

21 King, Orientalism and Religion, 34.

17 considers the privatization of mysticism and the stress on ‘experience’ as typical for this period. The ‘mystical’ is further juxtaposed to the ‘rational.’ The ‘rational’ governs the public realm, while the ‘mystical’ belongs in the ‘private’ realm. King states that under influence of Protestantism and the Enlightenment mysticism becomes decontextualized

(and thus easy to universalize), élitist (‘experience’ only being attainable to some), antisocial, otherworldly and domesticated (the ‘experience’ is held to be private and not engaging with the world; it does not interfere with the social and political order). This narrowly experiential and privatized approach to mysticism, so states King,

occludes or suppresses other aspects of the phenomenon of the mystical that tend to be more important for these figures and the traditions to which they belong –for example, the ethical dimension of the mystical, the link between mysticism and the struggle for authority, or the extent to which the statements and activities of mystics may relate to issues of politics and social justice.22

Something similar has been argued by Omid Safi in relation to Sufism. Safi also takes issue with the conceptualizations of mysticism by the likes of Evelyn Underhill, Margaret Smith and William James, who he holds to have had a significant influence on the study of

Sufism.23 He too considers them to be the products of a post-enlightenment, protestant worldview. His biggest issue with these conceptualizations is that it seems to leave no space for the interpretation of Sufism in its broader social context. According to this conception

22 Ibid., 24.

23 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Longmans Green, 1902); Margaret

Smith, An Introduction to Mysticism (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1931);

Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness

(London: Menthuen, 1911). Safi sees this type of thought on mysticism represented in among others

Annemarie Schimmel’s Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Omid Safi, “Bargaining with Baraka: Persian

Sufism, ‘Mysticism,’ and Pre-Modern Politics,” The Muslim World 90 (2000): 260-63.

18 Sufism is considered to be a highly personal endeavor that takes place, as religion in general in the post-enlightenment world, in the private realm, and only focuses on ‘mystical experience.’ By forcing such a conceptualization of mysticism on the Sufi tradition, he argues, one remains stuck in the decontextualized study of individuals who are perceived to best fit the profile of a ‘true’ mystic looking for a personal experience of the divine. One comes to deny the deep social and political implications of Sufism, and the more often communal and institutionalized than individual character of Sufi devotional practices.24

This narrow understanding of mysticism, instead of helping us in giving a proper historical analysis of mystical thoughts and expressions both on the level of ideas and their social and political causes and implications, rather becomes an agent for modern privatized forms of spirituality, which within the framework of post-Enlightenment ideas on religion is considered to be a form of ‘good’ and ‘warm’ spiritual religion in opposition to ‘bad’ and

‘cold’ orthodoxy. It is a confusion of ‘Is’ and ‘Ought’: scholars of mysticism project their wish of what ‘true’ mysticism or ‘true’ religion should be on whom they hold to be exemplary historical figures, who according to them represent the perennial wisdom and truth of the ideas they wish to propound for their own time.25

24 Safi, “Bargaining with Baraka,” 260-63. Fairness requires one to mention that this decontextualizing essentialist approach, although certainly present, has never been the only dominant approach in the study of Sufism, and that generally speaking proper historical and philological studies have been present in the study of Sufism from very early on, even before the criticism of Katz and his likes. Cf. Ahmet Karamustafa, Sufism: The Formative Period (Edinburgh:

Edinburgh University Press, 2007, vii-viii. Especially in recent years more and more valuable historicizing work is being done. An excellent recent example is John J. Curry and Erik S. Ohlander, eds., Sufism and Society: Arrangements of the mystical in the Muslim world, 1200-1800 (London & New York:

Routledge, 2012).

25 Also Bernd Radtke, in a polemical and sometimes slightly unfair article, takes issue with what he holds to be ‘suppression’ and ‘projection’ by Western scholars of Sufism. He states that the “long-

19 Following the line of these criticisms I would prefer to avoid to use ‘Islamic mysticism’ as a direct equivalent for the tradition of taṣawwuf as a whole. Although the less problematic ‘Sufism’ and ‘Sufi’ are used as much as possible in this study, it has proven to be sometimes unavoidable to indeed use terms like ‘mysticism’ and ‘mystical’. When this is done, it is important to realize that taṣawwuf for many Islamic scholars, more than an overwhelming personal experience, was first and foremost approached as a discipline of religious knowledge of the self and of approaching the divine that was bound to rules and restrictions. It would be more accurate to consider mysticism – in its epistemological dimension such as the concept of maʿrifa (experiential knowledge) and its metaphysical, cosmological and visionary dimensions (for example spiritual travels to malakūt and jabarūt) about which there is no consensus in the Sufi tradition- as but an aspect of taṣawwuf, and certainly not as the absolute essence. It is true that taṣawwuf from its very beginning has had many elements that relate to ‘experience’ (in the case of this study most notably the experience of seeing God), to an inner life, and to experiential knowledge. However, the concept has historically entailed much more – ritual, cultivation of good character and ethics, social organization, political engagement - and Sufi scholars themselves have lived cliché that Sufism is in opposition to the Law” is an attempt by scholars of Sufism, who he describes as “the convinced, the believers” (in ‘mysticism’ that is) to create a “warmer Islam” for those who tend to find orthodoxy unsympathetic. Radtke stresses how deeply Sufism is actually rooted in Islamic tradition, and from its very early beginnings was an ‘orthodox’ movement. He accuses scholars of Sufism of suppressing the textual evidence to the relation of Sufism with this

‘colder’ Islam. The ‘projection’ lies in their tendency to read their own expectations and aspirations into their object of study. Conviction is more important than scholarly knowledge. Bernd Radtke,

“Between projection and suppression. Some considerations concerning the study of Sufism,” in Shīʿa

Islam, Sects and Sufism: Historical Dimensions, Religious Practice and Methodological Considerations, ed.

Frederick de Jong (Utrecht: M. Th. Houtsmastichting, 1992), 70-82. Cf. Bernd Radtke, “Warum ist der

Sufi orthodox?” Der Islam 71, no. 2 (1994): 302-07.

20 differed throughout history about what has a legitimate part in the science.26 To force a modern understanding upon it is a distortion of this historical reality.

Sufism and ‘orthodoxy’, periphery and centre?

In line with this historicizing and constructivist approach, the relation of Sufism to Islamic

‘orthodoxy’ has to be problematized as well. We are not so much concerned with the question whether Sufism was historically considered part of othodoxy or not –no generalizing claims can be made about this-, but rather on what we exactly mean by

‘orthodoxy’, and whether this term can be legitimately used within an Islamic context. As with ‘Sufism’ and ‘mysticism’, scholars of Islam have vividly reflected on the problems of applying this concept in the context of Islam.27 Norman Calder has stressed that Islamic

‘orthodoxy’ is determined by Islamic scholars in a “discursive process, an ongoing process

26 Cf. Ovamir Anjum, “Sufism without Mysticism? Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Objectives in Madārij al- sālikīn,” in A Scholar in the Shadow: Essays in the Legal and Theological Thought of Ibn Qayyim al-Ğawziyyah, edited by Caterina Bori and Livnat Holzman, Oriente Moderno 90, no. 1 (2010): 161-88.

27 Cf. Brett Wilson, “The Failure of Nomenclature: The concept of ‘Orthodoxy’ in the Study of Islam,”

Comparative Islamic Studies 3 no. 2 (2007): 169-94; Norman Calder, “The Limits of Islamic Orthodoxy,” in Defining Islam: a Reader, ed. Andrew Rippin (London: Equinox, 2007), 222-36; Ahmed El Shamsy,

“The Social Construction of Orthodoxy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology, ed.

Tim Winter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 97-117; Alexander Knysh, “‘Orthodoxy’ and ‘Heresy’ in Medieval Islam: An Essay in Reassessment,” The Muslim World 83, no. 1 (1993): 48-67;

Robert Langer and Udo Simon, “The Dynamics of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy. Dealing with

Divergence in Muslim Discourses and Islamic Studies,” Die Welt des Islams 48, no. 3/4 (2008): 273-88;

Bernard Lewis, “Some Observations on the Significance of Heresy in the History of Islam,” SI 1

(1953): 43-63.

21 of interpreting their own past.”28 Also Ahmed El Shamsy has pointed out how ‘orthodoxy’ is a process rather than a ‘thing’, and how this negotiation of (credal) ‘orthodoxy’ in the case of Islam took place in a social and institutional environment, and was constructed in a process in which Islamic scholars, political authorities and even lay believers shared to different extents.29 Brett Wilson has made an excellent overview of the different uses of the term among Islamicists, and raises some critical points. He holds that the use of the term

‘orthodoxy’ in Islamic Studies comes from the need to explain Islam to European and

American audiences in terms they are familiar with from their ‘own’ tradition. This leads to a Procrustean use of the term, mutilating either the term or the tradition to make it fit. This quest for defining ‘orthodox’ Islam, he states, comes from the quest for an ‘essence’ of religion, which is in itself problematic. He concludes that within Islamic Studies there is a lack of clarity on what the term ‘orthodoxy’ means and to what it should be applied: it has been projected upon legal schools (mostly the Ḥanbalī and Shāfiʿī), theological schools

(Ashʿarī/Māturīdī), Sunni Islam as a whole, non-Sufis, the ahl al-ḥadīth, the opponents of the philosophers and Muʿtazilites, the synthesis of moderate Sufi piety and Ashʿarī theology, the opponents of reform and Muslim modernism, etc. Generally, there is a Jamāʿī-Sunnī bias in the application of the term.30 One can state that all the above points express concern with certain forms of essentialism and implicit normativity when determining what is

‘orthodox’ Islam by Islamicists, and stress that for Muslims themselves the meaning of what is correct belief and practice has always been and still is constantly negotiated. Calder and

28 Calder, “Limits of Orthodoxy,” 224.

29 El Shamsy, “Social Construction of Orthodoxy,” 97.

30 Wilson, “Failure of Nomenclature,” 169-94.

22 El Shamsy both seem to propagate the idea of Islam, and its ‘orthodoxy,’ as a ‘discursive tradition’ as coined by Talal Asad, as processual, and as a network of power.31

One may then ask oneself, and Wilson does this, why one would still use the term

‘orthodoxy’ at all? What is the function of the term when it has been stripped of its original, essentialist and normative meaning and has been ‘anthropologized’? It may be worthwhile to see whether it is possible to describe the relation of Sufism to the religion pursued as the status quo in a certain age without mentioning the term ‘orthodox’ at all. The terms ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ might be helpful in that. What I would like to argue, is that using these terms as understood by the sociologist Edward Shils might be a fruitful way to speak about the relation between Sufism and the religion propagated and institutionalized by the

‘centre’ and its institutions, thus to avoid the reductionist and normative pitfalls of

‘orthodoxy’. 32 For Shils the centre is not primarily a spatial phenomenon, but “a phenomenon of the realm of values and beliefs,” “the centre of the order of symbols, of values and beliefs, which govern the society.”33 These are embodied and propounded by activities of institutions and organizations, who in their turn are governed by an authority, an elite who see themselves as the custodians of the sacred of society. The values and beliefs

31 “An Islamic discursive tradition is simply a tradition of Muslim discourse that addresses itself to conceptions of the Islamic past and future, with reference to a particular Islamic practice in the present.” Talal Asad, The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam (Washington: Center for Contemporary Arab

Studies, 1986), 14. Wilson explicitly discusses the idea of Talal Asad of orthodoxy in the light of his idea of Islam as a discursive tradition. For Asad, states Wilson, “orthodox appears to be a purely sociological concept which simply means “conventional,” “established,” or “correct” for a particular context, its configuration of power, and its current understanding of the discursive tradition.”

Wilson himself is critical of this approach. Wilson, “Failure of Nomenclature,” 185.

32 Edward Shils, “Centre and Periphery,” in The Logic of Personal Knowledge: Essays Presented to Michael

Polanyi, ed. Polanyi Festschrift Committee (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961), 117-30.

33 Ibid., 117.

23 that these elites pursue through these institutions, is what Shils calls the ‘central value system.’34 To understand the relation of Sufism to the ‘orthodoxy’ of the age, it may thus be more rewarding to drop the term ‘orthodoxy’ completely, and instead scrutinize the relation of the particular Sufi author to the ‘centre’ and its values and institutions. This implies a move from a pure descriptive history of ideas to a historical-sociological analysis of these texts and ideas, a contextual reading of the Sufi ideas against the backdrop of the ideas propounded by other intellectual disciplines and their socio-historical contexts. The texts containing the ideas should be read in their broader circles of influence: not only the author and his intellectual environment should be taken into account, also other current intellectual environments and the broader social and political environment all have their influence on the ideas and the way they are captured in a text.35 Schematically these circles of influence would look as follows:

34 Ibid., 117.

35 For a good overview of the relation of ‘classical’ Sufism to its socio-political context see Ovamir

Anjum, “Mystical Authority and Governmentality in Medieval Islam,” in Sufism and Society, eds.

Curry and Ohlander, 71-93.

text

author

intellectual environment

other intellectual environments

social and political environment

Although this study is primarily a text based history of ideas and thus most close to the two inner circles, these other circles of influence will be present in the background throughout the study. As we shall see for example, Sufi conceptions of the hereafter served to establish and confirm spiritual hierarchies. These hierarchies had tangible socio-political causes and consequences.36 Dealing with as much as five authors unfortunately limits the depth of the analysis of these outer circles. It is mainly in the first chapter that we hope to shed light on the broader circles of influence of each individual author, and to determine how close they were to the ‘centre’ and its institutions.

36 Ibid.

25 History and eschatology in early Sufism

Not much is written on Sufi eschatology from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective. The only two monographs that have devoted a specific chapter to Sufi conceptions of the hereafter are Soubhi El-Saleh’s La vie future selon le Coran and Christian R.

Lange’s Paradise and Hell in Islam.37 El-Saleh on the one hand structures his overview around four historical periods and is mostly interested in the question how Sufis conceived of the nature of punishment and reward in the hereafter, especially whether they recognized its concrete outward character as described in the Qurʾān. Lange on the other hand discerns six synchronically existing separate attitudes towards the hereafter, which he identifies with three different trends within Sufism, and which are not necessarily bound to specific historical periods.38 Both studies are largely based on non-tafsīr sources. However, these sources from the formative and classical periods of Sufism do not show a strong interest in the hereafter. As El-Saleh and Lange have also noted, the theme of love and longing for God had largely superseded the occupation with Paradise and Hell in Sufi imaginations from the third/ninth century onwards, which led to a disregard for issues pertaining to the

37 Soubhi El-Saleh, La vie future selon le Coran (Paris: J. Vrin, 1971); Lange, Paradise and Hell. There are only two other monographs on Islamic eschatology to date. Both do not touch upon Sufism at all.

Nerina Rustomji, The Garden and the Fire: Heaven and Hell in Islamic Culture (New York: Columbia

University Press, 2008); Jane I. Smith and Yvonne Y. Haddad, The Islamic Understanding of Death and

Resurrection (Albany: SUNY Press, 1981). The forthcoming monograph by Lange promises to be the determining work on Islamic eschatology for years to come, and to supersede the former studies in analytical depth and in the range of material studied. For an overview of earlier works on Islamic eschatology see Lange, Paradise and Hell, intr.

38 In Chapter Two we will further discuss the value of these contributions as an analytical tool to understand our source material.

26 hereafter.39 Consequently, well-known handbooks from the likes of al-Sarrāj (378/988), Abū

Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 386/996), al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072) and Hujwīrī (d. between 465/1072 and

469/1077) do not contain separate sections on issues pertaining to the hereafter.40 It is

39 El-Saleh, Vie future, 97-102; Lange, Paradise and Hell, ch. 7. Cf. Ahmet Karamustafa, “Eschatology in Early Sufi Thought,” HHIT International Symposium “Crossing Boundaries: Mystical and Philosophical

Conceptualizations of the Dunyā/Ākhira Relationship,” Utrecht University, 5 July 2013, accessed 4

January 2015, http://vimeo.com/85067251.

40 Some exceptions deserve to be mentioned. Al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī’s (d. 243/857) Kitāb al-tawahhum deals almost exclusively with eschatology. Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥārith b. Asad al-Muḥāsibī, Une vision humaine des fins dernières: le Kitab al-Tawahhum d’al-Muhasibi, ed. André Roman (Paris: Klincksieck,

1978). The book on eschatology falsely attributed to Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), Al-Durra al- fākhira fī kashf ʿulūm al-ākhira is partly based on this work. Cf. Roberto Tottoli, “Muslim

Eschatological Literature and Western Studies,” Der Islam 83, no. 2 (2008): 452-77. Also ʿAzīz-i Nasafī

(fl. middle of 7th/13th century) and Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) showed interest in eschatological topics. Cf. Christian Lange, “A Sufi’s Paradise and Hell: ʿAzīz-i Nasafī’s Epistle on the Otherworld,” in

No Tapping Around Philology: A Festschrift in Honor of Wheeler McIntosh Thackston Jr.’s 70th Birthday, eds.

Alireza Korangy and Daniel J. Sheffield (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag, 2014), 197-211; William

Chittick, “Death and the World of Imagination: Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Eschatology,” The Muslim World 78 no.

1 (1988): 51-82. While this early period of Sufism may indeed be described as a period of relative disinterest in eschatology, this changes a bit in later periods. In the 18th century Aḥmad al-Lamaṭī (d.

1156/1743) for example included special chapters with descriptions of the limbo (barzakh), Paradise and Hell in his collection of sayings of Abd al-ʿAzīz al-Dabbāgh (d. 1132/1719). Aḥmad b. Mubārak al-

Lamaṭī, Pure Gold from the Words of Sayyidī ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Dabbāgh (Al-Dhahab al-Ibrīz min Kalām Sayyidī

ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Dabbāgh), trans. John O’ Kane and Bernd Radtke (Leiden: Brill, 2007). Also the 17th century Indian Naqshbandī scholar Aḥmad Sirhindī reflected on issues of the hereafter in his writings. Abdollah Vakily, “Some Notes on Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī and the Problem of the Mystical

Significance of Paradise,” in Reason and Inspiration in Islam: Theology, Philosophy and Mysticism in Muslim

Thought, ed. Todd Lawson (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005), 407-17. This indicates that Saleh’s opinion that

27 therefore not easy to precisely reconstruct Sufi conceptions of the hereafter based only on these sources. It is here that a close reading of Sufi Qurʾān commentaries may prove to be rewarding. Since a significant amount of verses in the Qurʾān deal with Paradise and Hell, one may expect that also a significant portion of commentary reflects upon them from a

Sufi perspective. It is therefore hoped that a careful reading of our sources will shed new light on or at least add extra details to the valuable studies of El-Saleh and Lange.

Lange describes the Islamic conception of the relation between dunyā and ākhira in two modes: a diachronic mode and a synchronic mode. The diachronic mode takes the fall from primordial Paradise and the banishment to dunyā as the starting point of history. With the day of judgment history comes to an end and is replaced by ākhira, the domain of recompense in Paradise and Hell. This structure thus has a linear conception of history as its basis. The synchronic mode that Lange describes is not so much interested in the linear understanding of dunyā and ākhira, but rather in an immanent as well as imminent conception of the otherworld: “there is a continuum between the two, a meaningful coincidence, or synchronicity.” Paradise and Hell do not only coexist with this world, states

Lange, they are “everywhen,” and may thus also immanently appear within this world.41

In the case of Sufism I propose a combination of these two modes: while a linear conception of history and eschatology remains intact in Sufi conceptions, the otherworld may also be synchronically immanently present in this world, most poignantly in the form there were no worthwhile developments after the 7th/13th century must be corrected. Saleh, Vie future, 120. A longue durée history of Sufi conceptions of the hereafter can impossibly fall within the scope of a single dissertation however. This study may be considered a Baustein for that grander purpose.

41 Lange is therefore critical of the use of terms as ‘hereafter,’ ‘afterlife,’ ‘afterworld’ or ‘world to come,’ terms that all hint at a diachronic understanding of the relation between dunyā and ākhira.

He prefers to use the term otherworld, to stress the aspect of Paradise and Hell being “everywhen.”

Lange, Paradise and Hell, intr.

28 of certain Sufi stations and states. Karamustafa for example defines the grander eschatological scheme of Baghdadi Sufism as determined by proximity to God. During the audience at the Primordial Covenant (Q7:172) all humans have experienced this proximity to God, with the promise that this proximity would become even more intimate in Paradise.

During this-worldly life this sense of proximity is principally lost. However, it can be preserved and renewed during this-worldly life by living in constant recognition of God.

The ultimate goal of Sufi training and cultivation of the inner life is the re-actualization and re-attainment of this proximity to God.42 The state of the primordial covenant –and of

Paradise- can thus be re-attained in the inner constitution of the Sufi. When we visualize this scheme, it looks like this:

Böwering has distilled a similar scheme from the works of Sahl al-Tustarī

(d.283/896). This-worldly life in the thought of Sahl, states Böwering,

finds its God-oriented motivation in the reactualization of the Day of Covenant (yaum al-mītāq) and is driven in its tendency towards the anticipatory integration of the Day of Resurrection (yaum al-qiyāma). Both “Days” fall outside the phenomenal existence of man and lie within the realm of man’s pre-existence and post-existence in the very presence of God.43

42 Karamustafa, Formative Period, 19. Cf. Karamustafa, “Eschatology in Early Sufi Thought.”

43 Gerhard Böwering, The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam: The Qur’ānic Hermeneutics of the

Ṣūfī Sahl al-Tustarī (d.283/896) (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1980), 145-46.

This scheme also takes the primordial covenant as starting point. Böwering defines this Day of the Covenant as pre-existential infinity (ibtidāʾ). On this day humankind professed the oneness of God and confessed His Lordship (rubūbiyya). The ultimate return after

“phenomenal existence” is to “post-existential infinity” (intihāʾ). On the Day of Resurrection man is reintegrated into the lasting presence of the Real, that is God (ḥaqq). Man has an encounter with God (liqāʾ al-ḥaqq), exists in His permanence (al-baqāʾ maʿ al-ḥaqq) and has a visual perception of God (al-naẓar ilā al-ḥaqq). During this-worldly life man tries to reach these moments by travelling the mystical path, thus overcoming his lower self (nafs) in favor of his heart (qalb). The re-actualization of the Day of the Covenant happens by means of experiential knowledge of God (maʿrifa). The Day of Resurrection is anticipated in the experiences of unveiling (mukāshafa), visual beholding (muʿāyana) and contemplative witnessing (mushāhada) of the realities of faith.44 It is thus in the mystical moment that this- worldly life is temporarily transcended, and that a foretaste of states from the world to come can be attained.

Both conceived meta-structures of Karamustafa and Böwering hint at a form of boundary crossing from this world to the otherworld during this-worldly life. In the mystical moment, in attaining a mystical state, the same state can be experienced as the one during pre-existence, and in the hereafter. The mystic either temporarily crosses the boundary from this world to the otherworld, or an otherworldly reality temporarily bursts into this world. It is this notion of boundary crossing through Sufi stations and states that I hold to be typical, though not universal, for Sufi conceptions of the relation between this world and the otherworld in the period of our interest. It is also along the lines of this meta- structure, be it with some slight adaptations, that this study will be structured.

44 Ibid., 145-84.

30 What is a ‘Sufi’ Qur’ān commentary? Defining the genre

In his article “Mysticism and the Interpretation of Sacred Scripture,” Steven Katz points out how the decontextualizing attitude towards mysticism in most extant scholarly literature has lead to “a nearly uniform neglect of the significance of sacred scriptures.”45 This strong claim cannot equally be made for the study of the Qurʾān in relation to Sufism. Pioneers in the study of Sufism such as Louis Massignon and Paul Nwyia have indeed paid substantive attention to the role of the Qurʾān in the shaping of Sufism and its technical terms, arguing that the Qurʾān itself stood at the basis of this religious discipline.46 There has been a fair amount of attention for the appropriation and use of the Qurʾān in Sufism as well, going as far back as Ignaz Goldziher’s Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung.47 He was the first to write about mystical exegesis as a distinct approach within the discipline of Qurʾānic exegesis. He defines mystical exegesis quite broadly, broader than one would do in the present, to even include the appropriation of the Qurʾān by the neoplatonic ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ.

To Goldziher Sufism and “der ursprüngliche, traditionelle Islam” are in radical opposition to each other.48 Contrarily to Nwyia and Massignon he therewith suggests that Sufi approaches to the Qurʾān are a form of eisegesis: Sufi ideas do not emerge from the reading of the Qurʾān, they are often even in opposition to its text. They come into existence independently of the Qurʾān or have foreign origins and are only later read into it. He states that Sufis therefore needed to apply allegorical reading to the Qurʾān to find a way to relate their ideas to the Qurʾān. Besides the ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ Goldziher is mainly concerned with the

45 Katz, “Mysticism and Interpretation,” 7.

46 Louis Massignon, Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism, trans. Benjamin

Clark (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997); Paul Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique: Nouvel essay sur le lexique technique des mystiques musulmans (Beirut: Dar El-Machreq, 1970).

47 Goldziher, Koranauslegung, 180-262.

48 Ibid., 180.

31 views of ‘major’ Sufi figures like Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) and Ibn al-ʿArabī (d.

638/1240) on allegorical exegesis and the use of the Qurʾān in their works. He does not pay specific attention to purposely written works of Qurʾān commentary as is done in this study.49

The idea of a separate Sufi genre of tafsīr seems to be a modern invention.

Premodern Muslim biographical encyclopedias on exegetes (Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn) do include authors of Sufi commentaries like al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021), al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072) and al-Simnānī (d. 736/1336), but do not mention a separate ‘genre’ of Sufi tafsīr. The identity of the authors as Sufis or renunciants is specifically mentioned, but is not considered to define their works of tafsīr as such.50 A normative judgment is sometimes

49 Ibid., 180-262. Only the tafsīr of al-Qāshānī (d. 730/1329), which he falsely attributes to Ibn al-

ʿArabī, is given some space.

50 Of the authors treated in this study, only al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī show up in works of Ṭabaqāt al- mufassirīn. Maybudī (fl. second half 5th/11th to first half 6th/12th century), al-Daylamī (d. 587/1191?) and Rūzbihān (d. 606/1209) are not mentioned for unclear reasons. It may have been that they were simply not well-known enough as authors of tafsīr to make it into these works and not considered

‘canonical’. It may also be that their works were not considered “tafsīr” in the proper sense and excluded on normative grounds. The second option is doubtful however, since ṭabaqāt-authors generally did not exclude people for normative reasons, and would rather simply add their normative objections to the lemma. A good example of this is al-Sulamī, who is mentioned alongside a criticism on his tafsīr. Al-Suyūṭī mentions al-Sulamī as “shaykh al-ṣūfiyya wa-ʿālimuhum bi-

Khurāsān,” and al-Qushayrī as “al-zāhid, al-ṣūfī, shaykh Khurāsān wa-ustādh al-jamāʿa wa-muqaddam al-

ṭāʾifa.” Jalāl al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Suyūṭī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn, ed. ʿAlī Muḥammad ʿUmayr

(Cairo: Maktabat Wahba, 1976), 73-4, 97-8. Al-Adnarwī mentions the same titles for al-Qushayrī, adding that he was “elegant in allusion” (malīḥ al-ishāra). Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Adnarwī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn, ed. Sulaymān b. Ṣāliḥ al-Khazī (Medina: Maktabat al-ʿulūm wa’l-ḥikam, 1997) 125-27.

Al-Dāwūdī also mentions al-Sulamī as shaykh mashāyikh al-ṣūfiyya, and quotes both sayings in favor

32 made on these works however. Al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) for example categorizes the commentary of al-Sulamī as not worthy of praise (ghayr maḥmūd), because of its alleged

Ismāʿīlī (bāṭinī) and Qarmatian tendencies.51 Contemporary Muslim historians of tafsīr do distinguish a separate Sufi genre within tafsīr. For example the most prominent 20th-century historiography by al-Dhahabī treats Sufi commentaries on the Qurʾān in a special chapter.52

He distinguishes between two forms of Sufi tafsīr, the first by method of speculative philosophy (naẓarī), the other by method of allusion (ishārī). The first he considers to be a form of eisegesis: the thoughts that the author has developed independently from the

Qurʾān are read into and forced upon the Qurʾānic text. The second he defines as

“interpretation of the verses of the Qur’an differing from its apparent meaning, in accordance with hidden allusions that appear to the masters of the path (arbāb al-sulūk).

This may be in conformity with the intended apparent meanings.” 53 Among the exegetes whom he mentions are al-Tustarī, al-Sulamī, al-Qushayrī and Rūzbihān, who all figure prominently in our study as well. The Turkish scholar of Sufism and tafsīr, Süleyman Ateș, like his Egyptian colleague, considers the hermeneutical method of allusion (ishāra) to be the common denominator for the Sufi genre: he speaks of a school of ishārī tafsīr (işârî tefsîr of and in opposition to him and his tafsīr. He also has very favorable words for al-Qushayrī and recognizes him as the leader of the Sufis in Khurāsān. Shams al-Dīn Muhāmmad b. ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-

Dāwūdī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1983), I, 344-52; II, 142-43.

51 Suyūṭī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn, 98.

52 Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-Dhahabī, Al-tafsīr wa’l-mufassirūn (Cairo: Maktabat Wahba, 2003), II, 250-307.

53 Dhahabī, Al-tafsīr wa’l-mufassirūn, II, 261. Al-Dhahabī is explicitly negative on naẓarī tafsīr. He does defend ishārī tafsīr as a legitimate form of exegesis as long as the apparent (ẓāhir) meaning of the

Qurʾān is respected, and quotes favorable opinions of earlier authorities like Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ al-

Shahrazurī and Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftazānī. Dhahabī, Al-tafsīr wa’l-mufassirūn, II, 256-60, 264-70. For an analysis of the implicit and explicit ideological choices made in this work see Walid Saleh,

“Historiography of tafsīr in Arabic,” 6-11.

33 okulu) and includes all authors of this study in his overview, with the exception of al-

Daylamī.54

The academic study of Sufi Qurʾān commentaries seems to have followed this modern Muslim tendency to define the genre according to their hermeneutical methods: a commentary is considered to be ‘Sufi’ when it refers to terms like ‘allusion’ (ishāra),

‘unveiling’ (kashf), and ‘inward’ (bāṭin) to describe its method of interpretation. Alan Godlas, like Ateș, speaks of a genre of ishārī tafsīr, or tafsīr bi’l-ishāra. What he considers all these commentaries to have in common, despite their large differences in style and content, is that the interpretative method involves an element of ‘unveiling’ (kashf) and is thus experiential. The ‘unveiled’ meanings of the verses are mostly related to Sufi practice and doctrines, and are not considered to negate the apparent meanings of the Qurʾānic text by the authors. He places the commentaries in his overview on a continuum of ‘moderate’ and

‘esoteric’ works, the ‘moderate’ ones being works that also include exoteric forms of exegesis.55 Kristin Zahra Sands also upholds the idea of a genre defined by a shared set of hermeneutical assumptions and elements, that can be characterized as ‘Sufi’. She argues that these works can legitimately be considered a subgenre of tafsīr, because “they follow the lemma and comment format of tafsīr, and address the Qurʾān in a sequential, even if in a more selective manner.”56 She does make clear that Sufi authors themselves hardly ever self-defined as Sufis, and preferred to label themselves as for example “the people of allusion and understanding” (ahl al-ishāra wa’l-fahm), “the people of meanings” (ahl al- maʿānī), or “the people of love” (ahl al-ʿishq).57 More recently Jamal Elias has taken a critical

54 Süleyman Ateș, İşârî tefsîr okulu (Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi, 1974).

55 Alan Godlas, “Ṣūfism,” in The Blackwell Companion to the Qurʾān, ed. Andrew Rippin (Malden:

Blackwell, 2006), 350-51.

56 Kristin Z. Sands, Ṣūfī Commentaries on the Qurʾān in Classical Islam (London: Routledge, 2006), 67

57 Ibid., 1-4.

34 stance against the notion of a ‘genre’ of Sufi tafsīr. His main objection to upholding this notion of a separate genre lies in that Sufi commentaries on the Qurʾān according to him

“lack a shared structure or identifiable set of concerns that distinguish them from the wider category of tafsīr literature.” 58 Moreover he claims that the term ‘Sufi’ is not defined properly in relation to tafsīr.

We will come back to this issue of a ‘genre’ of Sufi tafsīr at the end of chapter 1.

There I will propose, after a careful reading of the introductory statements of the authors themselves, that it is indeed justified to speak of a separate ‘genre’ of Sufi tafsīr. The main arguments for this are that most of our authors refer to the same set of hermeneutical terms in their introductions and the same sayings of earlier generations to legitimize them, as well as all referring back to the same earlier works of tafsīr and thus considering themselves part of the same genealogical tradition.

Using tafsīr as a source for intellectual history: some notes on method and sources

The study of tafsīr in general, and Sufi tafsīr in particular, is seeing a remarkable bloom in recent years, to the extent that one can now legitimately speak of a discipline of tafsīr studies within Islamic Studies. While scholarly interest in tafsīr was historically largely determined by its usability for reconstructing meanings of the text of the Qurʾān, there now is a strong trend that has a genuine interest in works of tafsīr themselves as a literary genre and their function in their larger historical contexts.59 In previous scholarship, as Görke

58 Jamal Elias, “Ṣūfī tafsīr Reconsidered: Exploring the Development of a Genre,” JQS 12 (2010): 45.

59 Two very recent edited volumes testify to this interest: Karen Bauer, ed., Aims, Methods and Contexts of Qur’anic Exegesis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Andreas Görke and Johanna Pink, eds.,

Tafsīr and Islamic Intellectual History: Exploring the Boundaries of a Genre (Oxford: Oxford University

35 and Pink state, “commentaries on the Qurʾan were usually consulted rather than studied.”60

Although in this study commentaries are indeed also used as consultation for the case study of eschatology and the vision of God, we do wish to generate new knowledge on the workings of the genre as well: the works themselves have intrinsic value for our study.

Why use tafsīr as a source for intellectual history? The Qurʾān is the one source that in general has been accepted as the most important religious source by all Muslims throughout Islamic history, regardless of sectarian affiliation, region or era. Each of these sectarian affiliations, regions and eras have produced their own works of tafsīr, in which the most important points of view and reflections on the Qurʾān within their tradition and socio-religious milieu are reflected. Each work of tafsīr represents an accumulated and communal understanding of the Qurʾān in a certain time and context.61 It thus “may validly be treated as a window looking into the Islamic Weltanschauung of any given generation.”62

By making an analysis and comparison of commentaries from our specific period of interest on verses relevant to our case study, a bird’s eye view of the historical development of the commentary on the verse in that period is possible.

Press, 2014). Both works contain useful introductions that give a good overview of the state of the art in the field.

60 Görke and Pink, Tafsīr and Intellectual History, 1.

61 As Karen Bauer states, “At its essence, tafsir is each scholar’s attempt to relate his world to the world of the Qurʾan; it is his attempt to relate his intellectual, political and social contexts to the

Qurʾan’s text. It is a process of meaning-creation, because what the scholars read into the text is not always explicitly there.” Bauer, Aims, Methods and Contexts, 8.

62 McAuliffe, Qurʾānic Christians, 27. McAuliffe does recognize the importance of tafsīr for intellectual history, but is more skeptical than Bauer about the potentiality of tafsīr as a source for a better understanding of the social, political or economical environment of classical exegetes.

“Contemporary context does not count as a hermeneutical element.” McAuliffe, Qurʾānic Christians,

35.

36 In our study one of the main questions is how the notion of tafsīr being a

‘genealogical’ genre relates to the widely shared idea that Sufi hermeneutics are

‘experiential,’ most notably in the form of ‘allusory’ (ishārī) interpretation of the Qurʾān.

The claim of an ‘experiential’ reading of the Qurʾān made by Sufi authors, and followed by some academic scholars, implies a higher level of originality and subjectivity.63 Is it indeed the case that our commentaries have a higher degree of originality and diversity in their style and content, or do the same rules of genealogy and tafsīr as an essentially

‘conservative’ genre apply to this branch of the genre? The genre of tafsīr being

‘genealogical’ basically means that later works draw on earlier works, adapting, refuting, abridging and modifying the extent material. This seemingly repetitive and un-innovative characteristic of an ever growing body of tafsīr literature is one of the reasons why the academic study of tafsīr has long been disregarded. However, the potential of exactly this genealogical character for understanding the identity of the individual author is increasingly being discovered and explored in more recent studies. As Norman Calder notes in his classical article “Tafsīr from Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr,”

[t]he process of citing authorities and providing multiple readings is in part a declaration of loyalty: it defines the tradition within which one works. It is also a means to establish the individuality or the artistry of a given mufassir: the selection, presentation and organization of citations constitutes always a process that is unique to one writer.64

63 For example Annabel Keeler strongly emphasizes the ‘experiential’ component of Sufi readings of the Qur ʾān, which according to her “results in a diversity that mirrors the degree and variety of mystical experience of each and every commentator.” Annabel Keeler, “Ṣūfī tafsīr as a Mirror: al-

Qushayrī the Murshid in his Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt,” JQS 8, no. 1 (2006): 2.

64 Norman Calder, “Tafsīr from Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr: Problems in the description of a genre, illustrated with reference to the story of Abraham,” in Approaches to the Qur’ān, eds. G.R. Hawting and

Abdul-Kader A. Shareef (London: Routledge, 1993), 103-04.

On a similar note McAuliffe states that “it is in the very process of selection, organization, presentation, and assessment of this material from one’s exegetical predecessors that the individuality and originality of the particular commentator demonstrates itself.”65 For this reason Saleh states that “[o]ne cannot study any given Qurʾan commentary in isolation. It has to be seen in conjunction with the tradition that produced it and the influence it left behind.”66 Following this notion of Saleh and McAuliffe, the study of a sequence of commentaries as proposed in this dissertation thus not only gives insight into the interaction between the Sufi commentary and the peculiar historical circumstances, but also enables one to see how a specific verse has been interpreted in relation to previous commentaries.67 How has the interpretation ‘grown’ within the period? Which sources, references and technical terms have been added or omitted, which continuities and changes can be perceived, and why did these occur? How do they relate to the historical particularities of the era of the author? When approached with these questions in mind, tafsīr literature may be a gold mine for a better understanding of intellectual history of a certain age.

The scope of this study may look overambitious at first sight, covering as it does five

Qurʾān commentaries authored in a time frame of no less than two centuries. However, in recent years valuable monographs have been published on some of these sources, which makes more longue-durée studies of the genre, especially with a clear thematic focus like eschatology, a conceivable enterprise. The body of literature on Sufi tafsīr is growing steadily, as is the body of available primary sources. It is therefore, I believe, the right moment to look beyond one single source or author and attempt a bird’s eye view of a

65 McAuliffe, Qurʾānic Christians, 312.

66 Saleh, Formation, 15.

67 Saleh, Formation, 9, 14-5; McAuliffe, Qurʾānic Christians, 291.

38 whole period through a specific case study such as eschatology. In chapter 1 our main authors, their Qur’ān commentaries and their Sitz im Leben will be discussed. Here we will shortly introduce them, the sources that are available to us and possible problems with editions. A general problem for the study of Sufi tafsīr is the lack of critical editions, which in some cases means that we have to take a leap of faith in trusting the uncritical editions available. It is hoped that the critical editing and publishing of the available manuscripts will become a larger priority for the field, to be able to be even more meticulous in future studies.68

Our study begins with Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī’s (d. 412/1021) Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr and stretches all the way to Rūzbihān al-Baqlī’s (d. 606/1209) ʿArāʾis al-bayān fī ḥaqāʾiq al- qurʾān. It encompasses nearly all Sufi commentaries between these two that are known to us as integral texts: Abū’l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī’s (d. 465/1072) Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt, Rashīd al-Dīn

Maybudī’s (fl. second half 5th/11th to first half 6th/12th century) Kashf al-asrār wa-ʿuddat al- abrār and Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī’s (d. 587/1191?) Taṣdīq al-maʿārif.69 Most of these sources

68 The long time that the field is waiting for the contributions of Böwering and Godlas, combined with the limited amount of scholars active in this niche and the general ‘crisis’ of philology within

Islamic Studies are not encouraging. It may well be an indication that we should not expect that the larger spectrum of Sufi commentaries will be covered anywhere in the near future. This would need a collective scholarly enterprise and an amount of resources that currently is not available to the field.

69 Excepted are the tafsīr works by Ibn Barrajān (d. 536/1141) that could arguably be labeled as Sufi commentaries as well, the Tanbīh al-afhām and Īḍāḥ al-ḥikma. The main reason not to include these sources is that they are genealogically not part of the tafsīr tradition as it came into existence in

Nishapur and the larger region of Persia, and do not refer back to the same authorities. A monograph on this author and his Qurʾān commentaries is forthcoming. Yousef Casewit, “The

Forgotten Mystic: Ibn Barrajān (d. 536/1141) and the Andalusian Muʿtabirūn” (Yale University PhD

Dissertation, 2014). A critical edition of his tafsīr is due to be published. ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbd al-

39 are authored by relatively well-known and well-studied figures in the history of Sufism, who are generally recognized as important figures in the ‘formative’ and ‘classical’ periods of Sufism. Their commentaries have appeared in at least one or more (unfortunately mostly non-critical) editions and have provoked some scholarly interest. Al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021) is widely recognized as an important collector and compiler at the end of the formative period. Several of his works have been critically edited, among which is his minor Qurʾān commentary Ziyādāt ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr.70 A critical edition of his major Qurʾān commentary is in preparation and a non-critical edition is available.71 Also al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072) and his Qurʾān commentary have seen warm scholarly interest. There are two uncritical

Raḥmān b. Barrajān, A Qurʾān Commentary by Ibn Barrajān of Seville (d. 536/1141): Īḍāḥ al-ḥikma bi-aḥkām al-ʿibra (Wisdom Deciphered, the Unseen Discovered), eds. Gerhard Böwering and Yousef Casewit, 2 vols.

(Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). To ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī (d. 561/1165) a tafsīr is attributed as well, but the authorship is unclear. We have thus left him out of this analysis. Cf. Ateș, İşârî tefsîr okulu, 134-35.

Godlas also mentions a commentary of a certain al-Darwājikī (d. 549/1154) to have been authored in the same period. This is only available in manuscripts and nothing is known about the author. Its study may be a worthwhile later enterprise, but would complicate this study too much. Godlas,

“Ṣūfism,” 354-55.

70 Only one manuscript of this tafsīr is currently known, probably from the 7th/13th century, in

Sarajevo. This has been critically edited. Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Sulamī,

Ziyādāt ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, ed. Gerhard Böwering (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1997).

71 The field is waiting for a direly needed critical edition of this work, which is in preparation by

Gerhard Böwering. There is currently only one non-critical printed edition, based on only one manuscript, from which the commentary on Surah Yūsuf is missing. Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān

Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Sulamī, Tafsīr al-Sulamī wa-hiya Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, ed. Sayyid ʿUmrān

(Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2001). This study largely relies on this edition, and refers to it in the footnotes. Prof. Böwering has generously provided me with a preview of his critical edition of the commentary on Surah Yūsuf lacking in the edition of Sayyid ʿUmrān.

40 editions available of his Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt, as well as a monograph on this tafsīr.72 On the life of Maybudī (d. early 6th/12th century) and his non-tafsīr works precious little is known, and very few studies are available. His voluminous Qurʾān commentary has appeared in several printed editions, and has mainly been studied by Annabel Keeler.73 The life and works of

Rūzbihān al-Baqlī al-Shīrāzī (d. 606/1209) are relatively well studied, several critical editions of his texts and several monographs being available.74 His ʿArāʾis al-bayān fī ḥaqāʾiq al-qurʾān is still awaiting a critical edition, and has been published uncritically.75

72 ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Hawāzim al-Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt: tafsīr ṣūfī kāmil li’l-qurʾān al-karīm, ed.

Ibrāhīm Basyūnī, 3 vols. (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-miṣriyya al-ʿāmma li’l-taʾlīf wa’l-nashr, 1981-83). This is the oldest and most authoritative edition to date, and the work that we will refer to in our footnotes. A more recent edition is ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Hawāzim al-Qushayrī, Tafsīr al-Qushayrī al- musammā Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt, ed. Saʿīd Quẓayfa, 6 vols. (Cairo: al-maktaba al-tawfīqiyya, n.d.). The monograph is by Martin Nguyen, Sufi Master and Qurʾān Scholar: Abū’l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī and the Laṭāʾif al-Ishārāt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

73 I have used the following edition: Abū al-Faḍl Rashīd al-Dīn Maybudī, Kashf al-asrār wa-ʿuddat al- abrār: maʿrūf bi-tafsīr khwājī ʿAbd Allāh Anṣārī, ed. ʿAlī Aṣghar Ḥikmat, 10 vols. (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Ibn

Sīnā, 1965-91). Keeler has authored a valuable monograph on this commentary. Annabel Keeler, Sufi

Hermeneutics: The Qur’an Commentary of Rashīd al-Dīn Maybudī (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

Significant parts of the commentary have been translated and analyzed in William C. Chittick, Divine

Love: Islamic Literature and the Path to God (Yale: Yale University Press, 2013).

74 For an overview of the field of “Rūzbihān studies” see Carl W. Ernst, Ruzbihan Baqli: Mysticism and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian Sufism (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996), xi-xiii.

75 Alan Godlas is working on a critical edition and translation of the complete work, which will be an important addition to the field. For our study of the text we depend on the unpublished critical edition of the introduction and the commentary on Surah al-Nisāʾ by Godlas and an uncritical edition of the complete work. This uncritical edition, published by Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, is based on an Indian lithograph that according to Godlas is “riddled with significant errors.” Godlas,

“Ṣūfism,” 354. Rūzbihān al-Baqlī, ʿArāʾis al-bayān fī ḥaqāʾiq al-qurʾān, ed. Aḥmad Farīd al-Miziyadī

41 An exception to this relatively developed scholarly interest is Shams al-Dīn al-

Daylamī (d. 587/1191?) and his Qurʾān commentary. There is hardly any biographical information available, and none of his works have been critically edited and published thus far. Also for his tafsīr we have to rely on manuscripts.76 He may be considered a minor figure in the history of Sufism. He has surely not made it into the canon of great Sufi figures, neither in the biographical writings of the Sufi tradition that he himself was part of, nor in the contemporary academic study of Sufism.77 Still it is worthwhile to include him and his commentary in this study. Making minor figures part of one’s endeavor to understand the history of ideas in a certain era may very well help to elucidate the broader intellectual contexts in which the grand names could flourish. One should not only understand the peaks of the higher culture to understand the thought of a certain era, but also those who we have come to consider lesser figures.78

(Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2008); Alan A. Godlas, “The ʿArāʾis al-bayān: the Mystical Qurʾānic

Exegesis of Rūzbihān al-Baqlī” (University of California PhD dissertation, 1991).

76 For this study I have made use of two manuscripts: “Kitāb al-tafsīr al-Daylamī,” Yeni Cami 57; and

“Futūḥ al-Raḥmān fī ishārāt al-qurʾān,” Veliyuddin Efendi 430. In the footnotes I refer to the folio- numbers of Yeni Cami 57. Besides these manuscripts I have thankfully relied on an unpublished critical edition in the form of a PhD dissertation submitted at Sakarya University in Turkey. This critical edition is based on three manuscripts (Yeni Cami 57, Veliyuddin Efendi 430 and Bağdatlı

Vehbî Bölümü 185) and takes Yeni Cami 57 as its basis. Yahya Yaşar, “Şemsuddîn Ebû Sâbit

Muhammed b. Abdulmelik Ed-Deylemî’nin (v. 589/1193) Kitâbü Tasdîkı’l-Maârif Adlı Eserinin Edisyon

Kritiği” (Sakarya University PhD dissertation, 2010).

77 For a discussion of the problem of reconstructing the biographical details of this author and the relative oblivion into which he fell see Chapter One.

78 On the importance of involving minor figures in the study of intellectual history see Richard

Rorty, “The Historiography of Philosophy: Four Genres,” in Philosophy in History: Essays on the

Dissertation outline

The structure of this dissertation is inspired by the perceived eschatological meta- narratives discussed above, with some adjustments. In line with the themes of proximity and experiential knowledge that are central in the boundary crossings that Karamustafa and Böwering perceive, we take the vision of God as the main eschatological theme for the boundary crossing from this world to the otherworld. We consider the vision (ruʾya) of God in the hereafter, together with the meeting (liqāʾ) and nearness (qurb) of Him to be the most dominant in descriptions of the hereafter by Sufis.

The narrative that structures our study does not necessarily appear as such in all commentaries explicitly, nor is it necessarily present implicitly. As we shall see the commentaries differ significantly in their modes of Sufi thought, and not all authors attach the same value to the themes of nearness and vision. Although this structure can be found in some works, it in the first place serves as an analytical tool and narrative structure. We feel that it delivers a suitable larger narrative for the themes of our interest. It also serves well to locate the major differences of the authors in their approaches to Sufism. The structure depicts four (attempted) crossings of the boundary between this world and the otherworld. It begins with the banishment of Adam from Paradise, continues with attempts by Moses and Muhammad to re-attain the vision of God, and ends with the final crossing after the Day of Judgment. Visualized my proposed structure looks as follows:

historiography of philosophy, eds. Richard Rorty, J.B. Schneewind and Quentin Skinner (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1984), 67-74.

To be able to tackle the main themes of the dissertation it is necessary to firstly be properly aware of the historical background of the authors in the Islamic Earlier Middle

Period in Persia, and to come to a more intimate knowledge of the source material we are working with: they have to be placed in their circles of influence. In Chapter One we will therefore firstly discuss the historical background of the rise of the genre of Sufi commentaries on the Qurʾān in 5th/11th-century Nishapur, largely based on secondary literature. After that we will chronologically introduce the five authors that are central to this study. After highlighting the most important facts from their biographies and placing them within their broader circles of influence, we will discuss their works of tafsīr and the hermeneutical practices that they proposed and defended in these works. Based on this analysis we will conclude that it is indeed legitimate to consider these works as part of a

‘genre’ of Sufi tafsīr that takes al-Sulamī’s tafsīr as its collective reference point.

For our case study of Sufi eschatology, we consider it most appropriate for understanding the larger narrative to begin with the end in mind. Chapter Two therefore firstly deals with the theme of “the ultimate boundary crossing” from this world to the otherworld in Sufism. We will conclude that the most dominant themes are indeed nearness to God in the hereafter, meeting with Him and the vision of Him. This general conclusion

44 does not result from our selecting the source material to ‘argue’ for this specific point. We will sketch an as complete as possible picture of the conceptions of the hereafter found in the five main Qurʾān commentaries. This chapter is therefore rather descriptive and inclusive. We consider this descriptiveness and inclusiveness justified, since this is the first in-depth study of these sources on this particular theme, and the findings may prove to be relevant for future research on the topic of Sufism and the hereafter.

After having covered the “ultimate” boundary crossing and having established the

God-centeredness and focus on nearness and vision of the Sufi hereafter, in Chapter Three we will focus on discussions of the first boundary crossing: Adam’s banishment from

Paradise. Instead of the primordial covenant that Böwering and Karamustafa take as the anchor point of Sufi imaginations, our interest will go to the role of the loss of primordial

Paradise in Sufi eschatology. Firstly, we will try to understand why Adam ‘had’ to be banished in the thought of our authors: how do they interpret it to fit within God’s larger

(eschatological) plan with humankind, and how do they deal with questions of predestination and theodicy related to it? Secondly, we will try to understand what our authors exactly held to be ‘lost’ by the banishment: what constitutes the yearning to

Paradise during this-worldly life? What do Sufis hope to regain? Is it indeed the typical Sufi- eschatological themes of nearness to and vision of God?

After discussing the last and first boundary crossings which together form the first part of our case studies, and before moving to the second part which considers two prophetic case studies of visionary crossings from this world to the otherworld, Chapter

Four offers an excursion into theoretical debates on otherworldly and this-worldly vision of

God in theology and in Sufism. We consider this an important prerequisite to adequately contextualize and appreciate the discussions on the vision of God in the last two chapters.

After presenting an overview of theological positions on the vision of God and their main

45 arguments, we will analyze the positions of the Sufi authors of this study on this specific issue through a reading of their non-tafsīr works.

Chapter Five focuses on the discussion of Moses’ request to God to see Him (Q7:143) in our Qurʾān commentaries. We will argue that within some Sufi understandings this story signifies an attempt to temporarily restore a paradisiacal state of constant vision in this world: the yearning for the vision of God promised in Paradise was so strong that they were looking for ways to have a similar experience in the current abode. As we shall see for some this took the form of a visionary encounter, a foretaste of what was to come in the hereafter.

In Chapter Six another prophetic model for Sufis of travelling to the otherworld and experiencing the vision of God will be scrutinized. We will discuss the commentaries on the first 18 verses of Surah al-Najm, which exegetes have generally identified with the heavenly journey of Muhammad. We will pay particular attention to a couple of verses that address a visionary meeting between two unidentified entities. We will discuss whether our commentators considered this to be a vision of God by Muhammad, and if so, which modalities of vision they proposed.

46 1 Sufi commentaries from the 4th/10th to the 7th/13th centuries: the rise of a genre

1 Introduction

This chapter discusses the five main sources that will be used in this study, and what their composition and the exegetical method deployed in them teach us about the development of Sufi tafsīr in the period under scrutiny. We will elaborate on some issues raised in the introduction concerning what we understand to be a ‘Sufi’ commentary, what might be considered the ‘Sufi’ exegetical method, and how these Sufi commentaries relate to the general developments in the history of tafsīr until the 7th/13th century. All authors are placed in their broader circles of influence and historical context. As explained in the introduction, I believe that to understand how Sufi ideas are constructed, one has to look at the full web of relations in the personal, linguistic, religious, social and political spheres.

The period we are dealing with in this study is what Marshall Hodgson defined as the

Islamic Earlier Middle Period (950-1250).79 All authors in this study, al-Sulamī, al-Qushayrī,

Maybudī, al-Daylamī and Rūzbihān, fall within this period. They lived, studied, authored and taught in the major Persian centers of learning Nishapur, Yazd, Herat, Shiraz and

Hamadan. These cities were under Saljūq rule for the larger part of the Islamic Earlier

Middle Period. This period is characterized as a period of “transformation of Muslim society.”80 It saw the restoration of a Jamāʿī-Sunnī political order in the Islamic world, and further institutionalization of both Islamic learning in the form of madrasas and of Sufism in the form of khānaqāhs. Sufism in this period found a firmly established place within Islamic

79 Hodgson, Venture of Islam, II, 6-7.

80 Richard Bulliet, “The Political-Religious History of Nishapur in the Eleventh Century,” in Islamic

Civilization, 950-1150: a colloquium published under the auspices of the Near Eastern History Group, Oxford, the

Near East Center, University of Pennsylvania, ed. D.S. Richards (London: Bruno Cassirer, Faber, 1973), 72.

47 society and brought forth, besides the authors of our present study, prominent figures like

Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī (d. 430/1038), the famous al-Ghazālī brothers, Abū Ḥāmid (d.

505/1111) and Aḥmad (d. 520/1126), and ʿAyn al-Quḍāt al-Hamadhānī (d. 525/1131).81 It is also the period in which the genre of Sufi commentaries on the Qurʾān becomes well established, with several commentaries being written, quite diverse in style and content. To properly contextualize the rise of the genre of Sufi Qurʾān commentaries we will first have a closer look at the rise of this genre in Nishapur, where al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī lived and taught, and then move on to the other authors and their historical contexts.82

2 Nishapur in the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh century

It is not my intention to provide a detailed history of Nishapur in these centuries, or to present new facts based on unexplored sources. I will only highlight some general developments on the social-political level as well as on the religious level -which are of

81 For an introductory overview of Sufism in this period see Hamid Dabashi, “Historical Conditions of

Persian Sufism during the Seljuk Period,” in CHI5, 137-74. Though overstating the rivalry and opposition between ‘jurists’ and ‘Sufis’ –many Sufis were jurists after all and vice versa- he gives a proper description of some key figures and their relations with their social and political environments.

82 The most important primary sources for the understanding of Nishapur in this period are Taʾrīkh

Naysābūr by Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ḥākim (d. 405/1015) and Siyāq li-taʾrīkh Naysabūr by Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAbd al-Ghāfir al-Fārisī, both published in facsimile in Richard N. Frye, The Histories of

Nishapur (The Hague: Mouton, 1965). These are the most important sources for the standard work of

Richard W. Bulliet, The Patricians of Nishapur: A Study in Medieval Islamic Social History (Cambridge:

Harvard University Press, 1972) and the chapters on Nishapur in Clifford E. Bosworth, The

Ghaznavids: Their empire in Afghanistan and Eastern Iran, 94-1040 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University

Press, 1963).

48 course intimately intertwined- that are directly relevant to a better understanding of the appearance of Sufi tafsīr as a literary genre, and of the works of al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī, its first representatives in Nishapur. This will largely be based on existing research.

2.1 Social and political background

The city of Nishapur was one of the four great cities in the region of Khurāsān, in northwestern Persia, the others being Marv, Herat and Balkh. It went through a period of great religious and cultural bloom and prosperity from the fourth/tenth to the sixth/twelfth century. It was the market center of a rich agricultural region as well as a center of industry and commerce, mostly ceramics and fine clothes.83 Its population in this period is estimated between 30,000 and 40,000.84 At the beginning of the tenth century it was under the rule of the Persian Sāmānid dynasty. From the second half of the tenth century, the Turkic Ghaznavids ruled the city, until the Saljūqs took over the city in

428/1037 and made it their capital for six years. They continued to rule it until the sacking of the old city by the Ghuzz in 548/1153. This meant the end of the prominence of the city in the region.85 Culturally Nishapur was a Persian city with Persian as its main language, but it also contained an Arabic and Turkic presence.86

The social and political history of Nishapur during Sāmānid and Ghaznavid rule mainly revolves around a number of patrician families that ruled the city in relative autonomy. They ruled in a subtle power balance with the higher external authorities, which in their turn patronized different factions according to their interests. These patrician

83 Bosworth, Ghaznavids, 153.

84 Ibid., 162.

85 EI2, s.v. Nīshāpūr, VIII, 62-4 (E. Honigmann [C.E. Bosworth]); EIr, s.v. Nishapur (C.E. Bosworth), accessed on 13 November 2014.

86 Bulliet, Patricians, 16-8.

49 families were landowners, merchants and religious scholars, often all three at once, and managed city affairs largely by themselves.87 Under Saljūq rule their relatively autonomous position became weaker due to factional strife and attempts of the Saljūqs to get a stronger grip on the city. This eventually led to the downfall of the city’s prominence.88

2.2 The religious scene

By the end of the eleventh century the majority of Nishapur was Islamized. Small communities of Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians continued to exist. The Islamic religious sphere was divided between Ḥanafīs and Shāfiʿīs, Muʿtazilīs and Ashʿarīs, the Karrāmiyya, and a minor Shīʿī presence.89

The patrician families patronized and dominated most of the religious scene and its institutions of learning. With their income from the agricultural hinterlands they financed awqāf, religious edifices and public works. Merchants spent their leisure time on religious study with scholars.90 They were, as was most of eastern Iran and Transoxania, roughly divided in two camps: a Ḥanafī and a Shāfiʿī camp. Most of the Ḥanafīs, though not exclusively, were Muʿtazilī in creed. The Shāfiʿīs were initially not homogeneous in credal matters, but from the eleventh century onwards were predominantly Ashʿarī.91 To be affiliated with either the Ḥanafī or the Shāfiʿī school was firstly a legal necessity for the patrician families, since the social order depended upon Islamic law. The Islamic legal order guaranteed them, as representatives and patrons of the religious order, a sense of

87 Ibid., 26-7, 75.

88 Ibid., 76.

89 Ibid., 15; Bosworth, Ghaznavids, 165.

90 Bulliet, Patricians, 11-4.

91 Wilferd Madelung, Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran (Albany: Bibliotheca Persica, 1988): 27-30;

Allesandro Bausani, “Religion in the Saljuq Period,” in CHI5, 283-90.

50 independence from the higher political authorities, who were subject to the same law.92

However, this affiliation to a legal school represented more than a practical necessity. It was the basis for group solidarity (ʿaṣabiyya) and it thus regularly led to political tensions within the city. The two camps sometimes even clashed violently. In the eleventh century the Saljūqs under Ṭughril Beg (d. 455/1063) patronized Ḥanafism, and gave preference to

Ḥanafīs in religious and government appointments. This culminated in the violent persecution of the Shāfiʿīs who followed the Ashʿarī creed, starting around 439/1048. This persecution only ended when, after the death of Ṭughril Beg, the Shāfiʿī Niẓām al-Mulk (d.

485/1092) was appointed as vizier of Khurāsān, and patronized the Shāfiʿī school and

Ashʿarī creed instead.93

The only segment of the religious scene that was not dominated and patronized by the patrician families, and can perhaps even be considered a counter movement, was the more populist and proselytizing movement of the Karrāmiyya, who had their own distinct views on credal matters, jurisprudence and asceticism. The poorer segments of society that were not patronized by the patrician families seem to have been more attracted to their preaching. With their militant social activism and emphasis on poverty (faqr), prohibition of work for profit (taḥrīm al-makāsib) and reliance on God for one’s sustainment (tawakkul),

92 Under Saljūq rule this relative independence would become less, and religious institutions became more and more patronized and directed by the state. Also in Nishapur this was felt during the reign of Niẓām al-Mulk (d. 485/1092). See Bulliet, Patricians, 74-5. For a description of the earlier relative independence of religious authority from the political authority see Ira Lapidus, “The Separation of

State and Religion in the Development of Early Islamic Society,” IJMES 6 (1975): 363-85.

93 Madelung, Religious Trends, 32-4; Bulliet, Patricians, 30, 33, 37-9. This persecution, although primarily targeted at the Shāfiʿīs, whose leaders were all Ashʿarīs by that time, seems to have been more framed as a conflict over the Ashʿarī creed, since it was easier to dismiss the other as heretic over creed issues than over legal differences. Bulliet still holds it to be a social conflict primarily, albeit framed as a religious conflict.

51 they profiled themselves as leaders of the oppressed poor as a force against the trading class of the patricians and their religious elite.94 Therefore, this movement had a quite strong mobilizing power among the lower classes, and was thus able to play a significant role on the political scene. They were patronized by the Ghaznavids for some time and shortly held the influential position of raʾīs around the year 1010 CE.95 Although the patricians were divided among themselves by madhhab lines, and now and then had violent clashes with each other, they tended to unite against the common threat of the

Karrāmiyya.96

2.3 Religious education

It was also the Karrāmiyya who started with the practice of establishing khānaqāhs and madrasas to institutionalize their communal life, missionary work and education. Only at the end of the tenth century, other groups, notably the Sufis from the Shāfiʿī School, started

94 Margaret Malamud, “The Politics of Heresy in Medieval Khurasan: The Karramiyya in Nishapur,”

Iranian Studies 27, no. 1 (1994): 43-5. Not much is known about the exact content of the teachings of the Karrāmiyya, and what we do know is mostly through the eyes of its opponents. The most important work of its founder, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Karrām (d. 255/869), ʿAdhāb al-qabr, is lost. Some lesser known texts have been analyzed by Joseph van Ess, Ungenützte Texte zur Karrāmiyya:

Eine Materialsammlung (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1980). They seem to have had their own views both in credal matters (very literalist) and in jurisprudence, thus offering a complete alternative to prevailing trends in Sunnism and Shiʿism to its followers. Cf. Clifford E.

Bosworth, “The Rise of the Karāmiyyah in Khurasan,” The Muslim World 50 (1960): 5-14; Josef van Ess,

Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. Und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra. Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1991-97), IV, 346, 531.

95 Bulliet, “Political-Religious History,” 74-6.

96 Bulliet, Patricians, 39.

52 to establish similar institutions.97 These institutions especially flourished in Nishapur. They were often built for famous teachers and stayed within their families after their deaths, as was the case with the madrasa built for al-Qushayrī’s teacher and father in law Abū ʿAlī al-

Daqqāq (d. 405/1015).98 The works of scholars were kept in libraries inside these madrasas.99

Islamic education was not strictly limited to these institutions. A teacher-student relationship could develop outside the madrasa as well. A thoroughly systematized curriculum, with age restrictions or required courses was not present. The person teaching was considered more important for the quality of the education than the institutional environment. The teacher granted the student an ijāza when a subject or text was sufficiently studied. Linked by this ijāza to a chain of oral authority, the student was certified to teach himself.100 By excluding people of low birth from obtaining ijāzas the patricians used this educational system to buttress their own position and to keep monopolizing the production, transmission and dissemination of religious knowledge.101

97 Madelung, Religious Trends, 45; EI2, s.v. Khānḳāh, IV, 1025 (J. Chabbi); Malamud, “Politics of Heresy,”

41-2, 48; EIr, s.v. Ḵānaqāh (G. Böwering & M. Melvin-Koushki), accessed on 2 November 2014.

98 Heinz Halm, “Die Anfänge der Madrasa,” ZDMG Supplement III, 1: XIX Deutsche Orientalistentag

(1975): 439.

99EI2, s.v. Madrasa, V, 1126 (R. Hillenbrand). The introduction of madrasas is often associated with

Niẓām al-Mulk. Whether this is correct is part of an ongoing debate. Some have claimed that the institution is at least two centuries older than that, as the history of Nishapur shows. Niẓām al-Mulk can be credited with popularizing the practice among leaders outside of Khurāsān however. See the list of the madrasas of Nishapur in Bulliet, Patricians, 249-55. Cf. EIr, s.v. Education iv. The Medieval

Madrasa (C. Melchert), accessed on 8 November 2014; George Makdisi, “Muslim Institutions of

Learning in Eleventh-Century Baghdad,” BSOAS, 24 (1961): 1-56; Abdel-Latif Tibawi, “Origin and

Character of al-madrasah,” BSOAS 25 (1962): 225-238; Halm, “Die Anfänge der Madrasa.”

100 Bulliet, Patricians, 48-54.

101 Ibid., 55-6.

2.4 The position of Sufism

For Sufism the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries were a period of consolidation and ordering of what was established in the former centuries, and of making the material available to a larger audience. Much of what we know about early Sufism is through works composed in this period.102 Different strands of “proto-Sufism,” notably the Sufism of

Baghdad (which was the only proto-strand that actually defined itself with the word taṣawwuf), the People of Blame (Malāmatiyya) of Khurāsān, and the Sages of Transoxania definitively merged into one movement from then on known as Sufism.103 During the third/ninth century the movement of renunciants (zuhhād) was still dominant, while the

Malāmatiyya gradually emerged. Sufism appeared in Nishapur around the middle of the fourth/tenth century, and dominated the scene by the end of the fifth/eleventh century.104

This process mostly took place through the ascendancy of the Sufism of Baghdad in these regions, more or less integrating the other regionally existing trends, including the

102 Lutz Berger, “Geschieden von allem ausser Gott”: Sufik und Welt bei Abū ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān as-Sulamī (936-

1021) (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1998), 12. For a thorough description of the development of

Sufism in this period see Karamustafa, Formative Period.

103 Jacqueline Chabbi, “Remarques sur le développement historique des mouvements ascétiques et mystiques au Khurasan: IIIe/IXe siècle – IVe/Xe siècle,” Studia Islamica 46 (1977): 29-38; Christopher

Melchert, “Sufis and Competing Movements in Nishapur,” Iran 39 (2001): 237-47. Cf. Harith Bin

Ramli, “The Rise of Early Sufism: A Survey of Recent Scholarship on its Social Dimensions,” History

Compass 8, no. 11 (2010): 1299-315.

104 Bulliet, Patricians, 41-2. In Nishapur the rise of Sufism and absorption of the Malāmatī strand is clearly visible in the development of onomastic practices, as described by Chabbi, “Mouvements ascétiques,” 29-38. A convenient table of these data is provided by Bulliet, Patricians, 41.

54 Karrāmī khānaqāhs and the Malāmatī chivalry (futuwwa) lore.105 Besides this merging of traditions on an intellectual level, the popular support of these Sufi ideas was enhanced as well. Until the fourth/tenth century, the different strands of proto-Sufism had mostly been an endeavor of an elite, but now several authors made the effort to spread Sufi ideas and concepts to a larger audience.106 In this transformation the region of Khurāsān, and

Nishapur in particular, as we shall see partly through the works of al-Sulamī and al-

Qushayrī, played a crucial role.

The main movement with a renunciant-mystical orientation in Nishapur that would merge with the Sufism of Baghdad was that of the People of Blame (Malāmatiyya). It emerged in Nishapur around the ninth century and is among others associated with

Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār (d. 271/884), who is included in the commentary of al-Sulamī. Their teaching was centered on a basic radical doctrine of denunciation of any form of outward appearance of piety, which should lead to an attitude of constant self-blame and attraction of blame by others (hence the name Malāmatiyya, rooted in Q5:54 and Q75:2), and struggle against hope for divine reward and approval by man. In opposition to the Karrāmiyya, they stressed the importance of working for one’s livelihood, and assimilating into mainstream social life. They were closely related to the craftsmen who were practitioners of chivalry

(futuwwa). Their negative attitude towards outward appearance resulted in an apparent assimilation into the mainstream, and a lack of distinct institutions and even of their own

105 Karamustafa, Formative Period, 60-62; Alexander Knysh, Islamic Mysticism: A Short History (Leiden:

Brill, 2000), 99.

106 Cf. Margaret Malamud, “Sufi Organizations and Structures of Authority in Medieval Nishapur,”

IJMES 26, no. 3 (1994): 427-42; Melchert, “Competing Movements.”

55 textual tradition.107 Some of its leading figures were in contact with the Sufis of Baghdad, and some exchange of ideas must have taken place.108

It is not clear to which extent the renunciant attitude of the Karrāmiyya movement influenced the development of Sufism in Nishapur. Al-Sulamī does not quote Ibn Karrām once in his works, and did not include him in his Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya.109 He is not unique in this. Most of the Sufi authors of his time tended to ignore the Karrāmiyya, which indicates they were not regarded highly by the Sufis, and despite their renunciant tendencies not considered part of the same mystical trend, as opposed to the Malāmatiyya.110

A popular narrative on the history of Sufism is that it developed as a counterculture to, and often in conflict with, the religious establishment engaged in exoteric Islamic sciences which were perceived as spiritually unsatisfactory, only to be molded into the

Islamic mainstream by al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111).111 The history of Sufism in Nishapur brings

107 The main source for our knowledge of the Malāmatiyya is a description by al-Sulamī in his Risālat al-Malāmatiyya. Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār also prominently figures in other works of al-Sulamī, among which his Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr.

108 EI2, s.v. Malāmatiyya, VI, 223-28 (C.H. Imber).

109 Berger, Sufik und Welt, 33; Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Sulamī, Kitāb Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, ed. Johannes Pederson (Leiden: Brill, 1960).

110 Chabbi, “Remarques,” 67-72; Karamustafa, Formative Period, 61.

111 For a criticism of this narrative see Malamud, “Sufi Organizations.” Bernd Radtke has argued, with reason, that the narrative of an opposition between Sufism and the exoteric sciences (Radtke uses ‘the Law’) only to be reconciled by al-Ghazālī is “a particularly tenacious and longlived cliché about the history of Sufism.” He claims that this narrative is a form of suppression and projection to create “a form of ‘warmer Islam’ with which the expectant can identify.” Radtke, “Between

Projection and Suppression,” 78. Cf. Bernd Radtke, “Warum ist der Sufi orthodox?,” Der Islam 71, no.

2 (1994): 302-07. Of course, various aspects of Sufism have never become completely uncontroversial, and its place within the Islamic mainstream continued to be contested throughout

56 nuance to this narrative, and shows that al-Ghazālī’s synthesis is rather the closure of a process of reconciliation of traditions that was going on much longer, probably even quite deep into the formative period of Sufism.112 Many of the ʿulamāʾ of Nishapur had Sufi affiliations, and many Sufis were teachers or scholars in religious institutions of learning.113

It was especially in the circles of Shāfiʿī learning that Sufism was embraced.114

2.5 Nishapur and the rise to prominence of the genre of tafsīr

The regions of Khurāsān and Transoxania saw activity in the field of tafsīr as early as the beginning of the second/eight century. Nishapur was the epicenter of this activity.115 It reached its zenith in the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries and brought forth prominent exegetes as Ibn Ḥabīb (d. 406/1015), al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035) and al-Wāḥidī (d.

468/1076), whose commentaries had significant influence on the development of the genre in subsequent centuries.116 Most of the authors of works of tafsīr belonged to the Shāfiʿī

its history. See Fred de Jong and Bernd Radtke, eds., Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen Centuries of

Controversies and Polemics (Leiden: Brill, 1999).

112 Berger, Sufik und Welt, 12.

113 Malamud, “Sufi Organizations,” 427-30.

114 Bulliet states that the Shāfiʿī intellectual scene in Nishapur was more ‘progressive’ than the

Ḥanafī milieu, and as a consequence more open to relatively new trends on the scene such as Sufism and Ashʿarism. Bulliet, Patricians, 39. Melchert disagrees with him, and states that it has more to do with the roots of Shāfiʿism in earlier traditionist scholarship that appealed to the Sufis. Melchert,

“Competing Movements,” 243.

115 Claude Gilliot, “L’exégèse du Coran en Asie Centrale et au Khorasan,” SI 89 (1999): 130, 138.

116 Walid Saleh therefore even speaks of “the Nishapuri school.” Walid Saleh, “The Last of the

Nishapuri School of Tafsīr: al-Wāḥidī (d. 468/1076) and his Significance in the History of Qurʿanic

Exegesis,” JAOS 126, no.2 (2006): 225-26.

57 intellectual milieu. Also Ḥanafīs and Muʿtazilīs produced some works, and the Karrāmiyya and Shīʿīs were productive in the genre as well.117

On the reason for the rise and success of this genre we can only speculate. It has been suggested that it was part of a “philological revolution,” or an attempt to bring the

Qurʾān to the heart of Muslim devotional life.118 When a strand of Islamic thought or an

Islamic science matured, it would relate itself to the Qurʾān in the form of tafsīr to show how it was reconcilable with or even rooted in the Qurʾānic text.119 One could say that tafsīr thus functioned as an apologetic genre. It also had the capacity of creating like-mindedness among a group of readers, to control and set boundaries for the activity of reading meaning into the Qurʾān, and to make this a communal practice.120 Another function of its encyclopedic variant may have been the creation of a broad consensus through its polyvalence and relative inclusiveness.121 The success of shorter summarizing works of tafsīr in Nishapur may have had to do with the development of the educational system as well, and the need for suitable texts for instruction in the madrasas.122 More fundamental research is needed to give conclusive answers on the function of tafsīr in the religious and cultural landscape of Nishapur.

117 Gilliot, “Exégèse du Coran,” 146-47. A Karrāmī tafsīr by an unknown author has been identified by

Aron Zysow, “Two Unrecognized Karrāmī Texts,” JAOS 108, no. 4 (1988): 577-87. Saleh believes that the commentary of al-Thaʿlabī also bears traces of Karrāmī tafsīr. Saleh, Formation, 6.

118 Saleh, Formation, 63; Walid Saleh, “Word,” in Key Themes for the Study of Islam, ed. Jamal J. Elias

(Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2010), 361.

119 Saleh, “Word,” 374.

120 Ibid., 372-373. The idea that Sufi commentaries were composed to create like-mindedness among an audience has been posed by Elias, “Ṣūfī tafsīr Reconsidered,” 50.

121 Saleh, Formation, 18-20.

122 Ibid., 20-2.

58 3 Al-Sulamī and his commentary: witness to the formative period of Sufism

3.1 His life, education and works

Coming from an upper class family of religious learning and of Arabic descent, Abū ʿAbd al-

Raḥmān Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Azdī al-Sulamī al-Naysābūrī (d. 412/1021) spent most of his life studying and teaching in his city of birth and death Nishapur. This city was under the rule of the Ghaznavids during his entire life. His first teacher was his father, al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad b. Mūsā al-Azdī, who later entrusted him to his maternal grandfather, Abū

ʿAmr Ismāʿīl b. Nujayd al-Sulamī (d. 366/976), himself an adherent of the Malāmatiyya in

Nishapur and a disciple of Abū ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī (d.298/910), a well-known Shāfiʿī scholar of

ḥadīth. His grandfather also stood in contact with al-Junayd (d. 298/910) of Baghdad. It was allegedly al-Sulamī’s grandfathers’ colleague, the prominent Ḥanafī scholar and judge Abū

Sahl b. Sulaymān al-Ṣuʿlūkī (d. 369/980), who is said to have initiated al-Sulamī into Sufism and gave him an ijāza to teach pupils (murīdūn).123 However, his most important teacher in

Sufism was Abū al-Qāsim Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad al-Naṣrābādhī (d. 367/978), who allegedly granted him the khirqa as well. Al-Naṣrābādhī was a Shāfiʿī scholar of ḥadīth, and a pupil of

Abū Bakr al-Shiblī (d. 334/946) of Baghdad.124

Al-Sulamī was an avid student of ḥadīth himself as well, and travelled throughout

Khurāsān and ʿIrāq for this. After his pilgrimage to Mecca together with al-Naṣrābādhi in

123 Berger doubts this, since this is only mentioned in much later sources. He thinks it is a topos.

Berger, Sufik und Welt, 41.

124 Gerhard Böwering, “The Qurʾān Commentary of al-Sulamī,” in Islamic Studies Presented to Charles J.

Adams, eds. Wael B. Hallaq and Donald P. Little (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 43-5; The most encompassing study on the life and works of al-Sulamī, and a standard work for decades to come is Jean-Jacques

Thibon, L’œuvre d’Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (325/937-412/1021) et la formation du soufisme (Damascus:

Institut français du Proche-Orient, 2009).

59 366/977 he spent the rest of his life in Nishapur as a resident scholar. He worked and taught in his own duwayra125, containing the extensive library that he inherited from his teacher and grandfather Ismāʿīl b. Nujayd. He seems to have been highly respected throughout

Khurāsān as a teacher of ḥadīth and Shāfiʿī man of learning. It is said that he was a prolific author, with allegedly more than hundred works on his name. Around thirty of these have been preserved, remarkably all related to Sufism: Sufi hagiographies, Sufi commentaries on the Qurʾān and treatises on Sufi traditions and customs.126

As mentioned before, al-Sulamī lived in an age in which the formation of Sufism came to an end, and in which the different strands of Islamic mysticism, under the wings of the dominant Sufism of Baghdad, became more or less synthesized. Al-Sulamī himself is considered to have played a significant role in the merging of the Malāmatiyya with the

Sufism of Baghdad.127 Al-Sulamī was connected to the Malāmatiyya through several teachers. Through his teachers he was already in an early stage in his intellectual development well acquainted with both the sober and the ecstatic thought of Sufis of

Baghdad such as al-Junayd, al-Shiblī, and even Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj (d. 309/922).128

3.2. His commentaries: self-definition

Two separate but very similar Qurʾān commentaries are known from the hand of al-Sulamī.

All current schemes of periodization of Sufi tafsīr place these two tafsīr-works at the end of

125 A duwayra is a small dār, house, and is considered to be an equivalent of the khānaqah.

126 Böwering, “Commentary of al-Sulamī,” 43-5; Berger, Sufik und Welt, 35-47; Knysh, Islamic Mysticism,

125-27.

127 Karamustafa, Formative Period, 60-3.

128 Berger, Sufik und Welt, 42.

60 the first, formative period, and consider them to be witnesses of the most important Sufi sayings on the Qurʾān from this period.129

The first is Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr. Based on its exclusively Sufi content it is estimated that he authored this work in a comparatively early stage in his career, probably between

360/970 and 370/980.130 In the introduction to the work, al-Sulamī gives some hints as to how he conceives of a Sufi tafsīr and what he intends with this work. He starts with a praise of God for making the ‘people of realities’ (ahl al-ḥaqāʾiq) understand His speech. They have, he states, “reported on the meanings of His speech from the subtleties (laṭāʾif) of its secrets and meanings, according to what God has disclosed to every one of them” and “spoken about the understanding of His book according to its marvels that occurred to them.”131

However, he stresses that they cannot have but a confined understanding of the Qurʾān’s realities, due to the greatness of the Book and the one to whom it has been revealed, that is,

Muhammad. He points out how the outward (ẓāhir) sciences on the Qurʾān developed, until nearly everything was said, but no one had worked on understanding it according to its reality (ʿalā ḥisāb al-ḥaqīqa), except for some unordered fragments attributed to Ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-

Ādamī and Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad that he is aware of. 132 He therefore felt the need to bring

129 Böwering, “Commentary of al-Sulamī,” 42-3; Godlas, “Ṣūfism,” 351-52; Ateș, İşārī tefsīr okulu, 3-8.

For a critique on these periodizations see Elias, “Ṣūfī tafsīr Reconsidered,” 43-4.

130 Nwyia argues that in an earlier stage al-Sulamī was less concerned with ‘defending’ Sufism and reconciling it with the exoteric sciences than he was in his later works, notably the Ṭabaqāt al-

ṣūfiyya. Since Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr does not bare marks of that concern, he considered it to be an earlier work. Paul Nwyia, Trois oeuvres inédites de Mystiques musulmans Šaqīq al-Balhī, Ibn ʿAṭāʾ, Niffarī, (Beirut:

Dar El-Machreq, 1973): 26; Böwering, “Commentary of al-Sulamī,” 49.

131 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 19.

132 The identity of Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad is problematic. It is tempting to identify him as Jaʿfar al-

Ṣādiq, but this cannot be done with absolute certainty. For a discussion of this problem see Gerhard

Böwering, “The Major sources of Sulamī’s Minor Qurʾān Commentary,” Oriens 35 (1996): 35-56. Nwyia

61 those together, adding sayings from other shaykhs from the ‘people of reality’ (ahl al-ḥaqīqa), organizing it according the order of sūras in the Qurʾān.133

He then quotes four sayings that explain the method of tafsīr of these ‘people of reality.’ These sayings are typically used by proponents of Sufi readings of the Qurʾān, and have largely determined their hermeneutical terminology.134 Al-Sulamī does not further elaborate on the meaning of these four sayings and its consequences for his own work of tafsīr, nor does he explain why he mentions them.135 The first is an account attributed to

ʿAlī in which he is asked whether any other revelation (waḥy) from the Prophet beside the

Qurʾān is available. His answer is no, “except for a servant who has understood His book,” implying that a correct understanding of the Qurʾān is a form of revelation.136 The second is a ḥadīth in which Muhammad states that the Qurʾān was sent down upon seven ‘letters’

(aḥruf), that every verse has an outer side (ẓahr), and an inner side (baṭn), and that every

has pointed out that, although we’re not certain from when these sayings attributed to Jaʿfar hail, we at least can say with certainty that they correspond with the technical vocabulary of third- century Sufis, and that they thus are a primordial source for the study of the formation of mystical language in Islam. Nwyia, “Tafsīr mystique,” 201-06. Massignon states that it was probably Dhū al-

Nūn al-Miṣrī who first edited the sayings attributed to him. Massignon, Essay, 206. Böwering is of the opinion that the works of al-Sulamī do not testify of this. Böwering, “Major Sources,” 56. Mayer concludes from the thematic coherence and consistency of thought of the sayings in the Sulamī- recension that it is very likely that the corpus has emanated as a unity. Farhana Mayer, trans.,

Spiritual Gems: The Mystical Qurʾān Commentary Ascribed to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq as contained in Sulamī’s Ḥaqāʾiq al-Tafsīr from the text of Paul Nwyia (Louisville: Fons Vitae, 2011), xxii.

133 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 19-20.

134 Sands, Ṣūfī Commentaries, 8-13. Sands gives an overview of the discussions among medieval Islamic scholars on the legitimacy of Sufi commentaries and the role of these quotes in these discussions.

135 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 19-23.

136 Ibid., I, 20.

62 ‘letter’ has a terminal point (ḥadd) and a starting point (muṭṭalaʿ).137 The third is a saying attributed to Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad:

The book of God is according to four things: worship (ʿibāda), allusion (ishāra), subtleties (laṭāʾif) and realities (ḥaqāʾiq). Worship is for the laymen (ʿawāmm), allusion for the elect (khawāṣṣ), the subtleties for the friends [of God] (awliyāʾ), and the realities for the prophets (anbiyāʾ).138

The last quote is again attributed to ʿAlī, and similar to the first quote. It again states that every verse of the Qurʾān has four meanings: an outer meaning (ẓāhir), an inner meaning

(bāṭin), a terminal point (ḥadd) and a starting point (muṭṭalaʿ). The saying then further defines these four: the outer meaning is recitation (tilāwa), the inner meaning is understanding (fahm), the terminal point is interpretation (ʿibāra), allusion (ishāra), as well as the rulings of what is permitted and what is not. The starting point is what God expects from the servant with the verse. ʿAlī then concludes with “He has made the Qurʾān an interpretation, allusion, subtleties and realities. Worship is for the hearing, allusion for the intellect (ʿaql), the subtleties are for contemplation (mushāhada), and the realities for submission (istislām).”139

His second work is Ziyādāt ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr (Additions of the Realities of tafsīr).140 Al-

Sulamī wrote it, so he states in his introduction, after he finished Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr and realized he wanted to add more material: “To this end I prepared a special book so that neither the hearing of one listening nor the writing of one copying may be corrupted.”141

Here again he decides to quote without further explanation some early Sufi authorities on

137 Ibid., I, 21.

138 Ibid., I, 23.

139 Ibid., I, 23.

140 Sulamī, Ziyādāt.

141 Ibid., 19.

63 hermeneutics of the Qurʾān quite similar to those mentioned earlier. He for example quotes al-Junayd stating that the Qurʾān comes in four meanings: outer, inner, truth (ḥaqq) and reality (ḥaqīqa). According to a quote from Sahl al-Tustarī the Qurʾān consists of five parts: clear (muḥkam), ambiguous (mutashābih), permitted (ḥalāl), forbidden (ḥarām) and similitudes (amthāl). The believer with experiential knowledge of God (al-ʿārif bi’llāh) then,

“acts upon the clear, believes in the ambiguous, considers the permitted to be permitted and the forbidden to be forbidden, and understands the similitudes.”142 A quote by Jaʿfar al-

Ṣādiq even mentions nine different approaches to reading the Qurʾān: truth (ḥaqq), reality

(ḥaqīqa), realization (taḥqīq), realities (ḥaqāʾiq), pledges (ʿuhūd), agreements (ʿuqūd), boundaries (ḥudūd), cutting of ties (qaṭʿa al-ʿalāʾiq), and exaltation of the worshipped (ijlāl al- maʿbūd).143

It is striking that in the introduction of both works he does not use the word taṣawwuf once. Other terminology does catch the eye, of which the dichotomy ẓāhir and bāṭin, ḥaqīqa and its variants, ahl al-ḥaqāʾiq, ishāra, and laṭāʾif are the most dominant. Since he does not really expand on these terms, it is hard to give clear-cut definitions of what they must have meant for al-Sulamī in this context, and what exactly he understood to be the hermeneutical consequences of them. This is made even more complicated by the fact that he, as we shall see, does not explicitly use these terms and divisions in modes of explanation as organizing principles for his commentaries.

What all sayings he quotes do seem to have in common is that they all testify to a

‘deeper’ meaning of the Qurʾān than its apparent meaning. He considers this meaning not equally accessible to every reader: it demands a certain level of refinement in one’s inward life, resulting in for example maʿrifa or ḥaqīqa. Does this lack of engagement with the concept of taṣawwuf mean he did not consider his work explicitly a Sufi tafsīr himself? A

142 Ibid., 1.

143 Ibid., 2.

64 possibility might be that, being an agent in the merging of the strands of proto-Sufism, he avoided the term Sufism, and opted for more ecumenical terms like ahl al-ḥaqāʾiq to express a mystical understanding of the Islamic tradition that was in his time still broader than only

Sufism. This way he could navigate between these two still separate but slowly fusing trends of Sufism and Malāmatiyya to which he was linked through several teachers, and with which he both identified.

His assessment in the introduction to Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr that the Qurʾānic sciences have matured while an understanding “according to its reality” is still lacking might say something about the intention of the author when compiling the work. As Wolfhart

Heinrichs has stated,

it is in the fourth/tenth century that the various fields of intellectual pursuit within Islam come of age. The traditions that had steadily been growing during the preceding two centuries now begin to reflect upon themselves: commentaries, compilations, and handbooks make the available material accessible by clarifying or organizing it.144

Al-Sulamī’s Qurʾān commentaries may be understood as an attempt to ascertain a place for the Sufi tradition within that process of reflection and consolidation of the matured Islamic sciences. It was by organizing the heritage of the past centuries of mysticism within the format of a literary genre that had become mainstream by the tenth century and especially thrived in Nishapur that he could create space for, or perhaps even ‘canonize’ this particular understanding of the Qurʾān within the consolidating Islamic tradition.

From the statement in his introduction to the Ziyādāt that he “prepared a special book so that neither the hearing of one listening nor the writing of one copying may be

144 Wolfhart Heinrichs, “Contacts between Scriptural Hermeneutics and Literary Theory in Islam: the

Case of Majāz,” Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaft 7 (1991-92): 253. Quoted in Saleh, Formation, 67.

65 corrupted”145 we can understand that he did not just write these commentaries with an encyclopedic motive. He intended to dictate and teach the texts, and as a traditionist who granted ijāzas he probably wanted them to be dictated and taught after him by his students as well. This makes it difficult to classify the works using Walid Saleh’s distinction between encyclopedic and madrasa commentaries.146 Al-Sulamī appears to have intended both purposes: on the one hand to document all the sayings known to him by the earlier generations of Sufis that relate to the Qurʾān, on the other hand to use these sayings for instruction to his students within the context of the broader method of Islamic learning in

Nishapur.

3.3. His commentaries: practice

So, how did these intentions he described in his introductions work out in his practice? Al-

Sulamī was trained as a traditionist (muḥaddith) rather than as a theologian.147 Also in his

Sufi commentaries he showed himself to be more a collector and compiler of sayings from earlier generations than an original author. In Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr he commented on around

3,000 Qurʾānic verses, about half of the total Qurʾān. The larger part of this commentary consists of sayings from other authorities, partly anonymous. Only a negligible portion of the work consists of sayings of his own. This makes, one could state, these works rather impersonal, and it is not an easy task to understand the religious identity of the author through them. Thibon has suggested that influenced by the Malāmatī aversion to public display of piety he consciously set himself to the background in his writings and left the

145 Sulamī, Ziyādāt, 1.

146 Saleh, Formation, 16.

147 Al-Sulamī lived in a period in which the Shāfiʿīs of Nishapur were not yet exclusively Ashʿarī in credal matters. It is not clear whether al-Sulamī adhered to this creed, although he surely had scholarly connections with the Ashʿarī’s of his time. Berger, Sufik und Welt, 42.

66 stage to other authorities, thus protecting himself from pride and adulation.148 He also states that the stress on prophetic traditions and sayings of early Sufi masters should be understood against the background of his alliance with the Shāfiʿī faction of Nishapur rooted in the principles of the ahl al-ḥadīth against the Ḥanafīs rooted in the principles of the ahl al-raʾy.149 The fact that he often quotes these sayings with a chain of transmission or explicitly mentions his ijāza supports this.

These quoted sayings are either direct commentaries on specific verses by earlier authorities, or more general sayings which al-Sulamī himself thematically associated with the subject of the verse.150 He ordered this material according to the traditional order of the Qurʾānic chapters and verses, thereby following what had already much earlier become a well-established form in conventional exegesis. He refrained from including conventional commentary though. He compiled only those items of interpretation that he regarded as genuinely mystical ways of reading the Qurʾān, that is, as “the understanding of the divine discourse on the basis of the language of the People of Reality” (fahm kitābihi ʿala lisān ahl al-

ḥaqīqa).151 He has therefore been called an ‘esoteric’ al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923), a systematic collector of practically all extant Sufi sayings on or related to Qurʾānic verses.152 By doing

148 Thibon, Oeuvre d’al-Sulamī, 128.

149 Melchert stresses that the terms ahl al-ḥadīth and ahl al-raʾy had not yet disappeared from the scene in the tenth century, and that the process of absorbing local traditions was still going on.

Melchert, “Competing Movements,” 243.

150 Böwering, “Commentary of al-Sulamī,” 50-1.

151 Ibid., 49-50.

152 The comparison with al-Ṭabarī is made by Böwering, “Commentary of al-Sulamī,” 56; Böwering,

Mystical Vision, 110. When one accepts the opinion of Walid Saleh –which I do- that to understand the impact of a commentary one must trace the influence on later commentaries, it is indeed justified to compare al-Sulamī to al-Ṭabarī. All commentaries under scrutiny in this study clearly relied on the commentary of al-Sulamī as a source. Saleh, Formation, 11.

67 so he made space for a specific Sufi genre to develop in a period in which tafsīr literature rose to prominence.

His works contain commentary of illustrious figures of early Islamic mysticism such as, among others, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/756), Dhū al-Nūn al-Miṣrī (d. 246/861) Sahl al-

Tustarī (d. 283/896), Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz (d. 286/899), al-Junayd, Ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Ādamī (d.

311/923), Abū Bakr al-Wāsiṭī (d. 320/923) and al-Shiblī.153 In his commentaries thus different strands of early Islamic “proto-Sufism” are fused: Baghdādī Sufism, Khurāsānian mysticism, and Meccan renunciants.

According to Böwering “al-Sulamī’s work documents the persistence of a significant esoteric vein among the Sufi elite of the fourth/tenth century in coexistence with Sufi works attempting a harmonization with orthodoxy.”154 Despite my objections to the use of the term “orthodoxy” in this context, I tend to agree with Böwering that the work is not as obviously as other prominent Sufi works appearing in this period meant as an “apology” for the Sufi tradition towards (or an attempt at harmonization with) the Sunni mainstream. I believe that this does not necessarily mean that al-Sulamī held the ideas propounded in the work to be in obvious conflict with that Sunni mainstream however. It rather seems that he simply wanted to refer to a different register that he considered to not necessarily interact with the outward sciences of the Qurʾān, with which it could easily coexist. From his words

153 None of these early figures have independently left behind a work of Qurʾānic commentary that is known to us in its original form, and probably only al-Tustarī, al-Wāsiṭī and Ibn ʿ Aṭāʾ indeed composed a work in the format of the genre. Al-Sulamī’s works are our main source to reconstruct them. An exception to this is the tafsīr of Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896), which has survived more or less independently, albeit in the form of notes and additional narrations by his students. See

Böwering, Mystical Vision, 128-35. Paul Nwyia has reconstructed the tafāsīr of Jaʿfar and Ibn ʿAṭāʾ based on al-Sulamī. Paul Nwyia, “Le tafsīr mystique attribué à Jaʿfar Ṣādiq,” Mélanges de l’Université

Saint-Joseph 43 (1962): 181-230; Nwyia, Trois oeuvres, 23-182.

154 Böwering, “Commentary of al-Sulamī,” 56.

68 in his introduction it becomes clear that he does not defer the ‘outward’ (ẓāhir) approaches to the sciences of the Qurʾān, but considers this ‘inward’ (bāṭin), allusive (ishārī) approach to be an ‘extra’ step that has to be taken in Qurʾānic sciences.155 Besides, one could also argue that the act of linking Sufi experience to Qurʾānic verses, the founding texts of the religious tradition, and organizing these according to the conventions of a by then well-established literary genre (tafsīr that is) within the Sunni mainstream is in itself an attempt to show its

‘genuine’ Islamic roots and to thus give it legitimacy within that Sunni mainstream.

However, in light of the reception of the work we can note that some other contemporary prominent scholars of tafsīr indeed did not consider it a justified ‘extra’ step and considered it to be in conflict with a ‘correct’ understanding of the Qurʾān. For example the aforementioned al-Wāḥidī from Nishapur held that “should he [al-Sulamī] claim that this book is a commentary on the Qurʾān, then he is an unbeliever.”156

155 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 19-20.

156 Translation from Saleh, “Nishapuri School,” 232; Böwering, “Commentary of al-Sulamī,” 52. This criticism of al-Sulamī’s work continued long after that. In his Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn al-Suyūṭī categorized al-Sulamī under the innovators in tafsīr, and said about him: “I put him in this category because his commentary is not praiseworthy.” He quotes al-Dhahabī (d. 748/1348) to have stated, “If only he had not written it. It contains alteration of the scripture (taḥrīf) and Qarmatianism

(qarmaṭa).” Suyūṭī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn, 97-8. The Qarmatians were a third/ninth century Muslim sect associated with the Ismāʿīlīs, who believed the Qurʾān should be read allegorically. The term qarmaṭa was later used to designate Ismāʿīlī-like esoteric groups. EI2, s.v. Ḥamdān Qarmaṭ, III, 123-24

(W. Madelung). Cf. Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 11-2.

69 4 Al-Qushayrī and his commentary

4.1 His life, education and works

Like his teacher al-Sulamī, Zayn al-Islām Abū’l-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Hawāzin al-Qushayrī

(d. 465/1072) was born to a family of Arab ancestry. Through his father’s line he belonged to the tribe of Qushayr, through his mother’s line to the tribe of Sulaym. He was born in

376/986 into an aristocratic milieu. After the death of his father his maternal uncle Abū

ʿAqīl ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī al-Māyiqī (d. 414/1023-4) raised him, a nobleman (nabīl) and landowner (dihqān) in Ustuwā, close to Nishapur. This uncle initially provided al-Qushayrī with a typical aristocratic education preparing him for administrative tasks, with a strong focus on the Arabic language and belles-lettres. He also learned ‘the art of horsemanship’

(ʿilm furūsiyya) and received modest military training. It was only when he came to Nishapur for administrative reasons that his training in the religious sciences started.157

During his stay in Nishapur he by chance met the Shāfiʿī Sufi scholar Abū ʿAlī al-

Ḥasan al-Daqqāq (d. 405/1015), a former student of al-Sulamī’s mentor al-Naṣrābādhī. Al-

Daqqāq had his own madrasa built for him in Nishapur, and here is where al-Qushayrī mostly got his religious education. His relationship with al-Daqqāq became so close that he married his daughter, and took over the directorship of his madrasa after he passed away.

Through al-Daqqāq and other scholars linked to him, he was thoroughly educated in the different branches of the religious sciences. He devoted himself to the study and transmission of ḥadīth, studied kalām according to the principles of the Ashʿarī school and steeped himself in the Shāfiʿī school of law. This meant that he became part of the social

157 Dāwūdī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn, I, 344-52; Richard Gramlich, trans., Das Sendschreiben al-Qušayrīs über das Sufitum (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag), 11; Nguyen, Sufi Master, 23-30.

70 structure attached to this school of law as well, which had momentous consequences for his further life and career.158

When tensions between the Ḥanafī and Shāfiʿī factions in Nishapur rose from the

430/1040’s onwards and the Ashʿarīs as a consequence were actively persecuted, al-

Qushayrī took an active stance by writing a defense of the Ashʿarī creed which was co- signed by leading scholars.159 This had serious consequences. As a part of the Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿī elite, he was persecuted as well. He went into exile, going on ḥajj, to ultimately settle in

Baghdad in 448/1056. There he resumed his scholarly activities. Only after the death of

Ṭughril Beg (d. 455/1063) could he return to Nishapur, under the patronage of Niẓām al-

Mulk.160

His works show a keen interest in several disciplines of religious learning. He wrote philological Qurʾān commentaries, works on Ashʿarī creed, on Shāfiʿī fiqh, and on Sufism. In his Sufi works, states Nguyen, he sought, in the tradition of al-Junayd, “to authenticate

Sufism by the standards of the perceived Sunni mainstream.”161 In Sufism he first sought training from al-Daqqāq. After al-Daqqāq passed away he studied with al-Sulamī in his duwayra. In his famous Sufi work al-Risāla one can witness a continuation of Sulamī’s project of incorporating Malāmatī thought into Sufi works.162 His approach to Sufism was generally sober, trying to integrate his mystical understanding of Islam with the traditional religious

158 Nguyen, Sufi Master, 32-6. For a list of al-Qushayrī’s teachers and the subjects of study see

Gramlich, Sendschreiben, 12-6.

159 For a translation of this document see Heinz Halm, “Der Wesir al-Kundurī und die Fitna von

Nīšāpūr,” Die Welt des Orients 6, no. 2 (1971): 214-15.

160 Nguyen, Sufi Master, 40-5; Gramlich, Sendschreiben, 14.

161 Nguyen, Sufi Master, 65-6.

162 For a scholarly translation into English of this work see Alexander D. Knysh, trans., al-Qushayri’s

Epistle on Sufism: al-Risāla al-qushayriyya fī ʿilm al-tasawwuf (Reading: Garnet Publishing, 2007). For a thorough and eloquent German translation see Gramlich, Sendschreiben.

71 sciences. According to Fritz Meier al-Qushayrī was a central figure in the definitive shift from the model of a more academic instruction into Sufism by a shaykh al-taʿlīm (master of instruction) to a more rigorous spiritual ‘training’ by a shaykh al-tarbiyya (master of training).163 He was indeed considered a Sufi shaykh in his own right as well, and in that capacity had a major influence on the development of Sufism in the period after him. He trained a new generation of pupils, among which al-Faḍl al-Fārmadhī, the later teacher of

Abū Ḥāmid (d. 505/1111) and Aḥmad al-Ghazālī (d. 520/1126).164

4.2. His Sufi commentary Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt

Al-Qushayrī lived in a vibrant community of commentators on the Qurʾān. Through several scholarly connections he stood in close contact with many figures from the Nishapuri school of tafsīr. He thus had access to knowledge of different strands of Qurʾānic exegesis.

Throughout his career he himself produced three Qurʾān commentaries that are known to us. Two of them, al-Tafsīr al-kabīr (The Great Commentary) and al-Taysīr fī al-tafsīr

(Facilitation in tafsīr), mainly deal with philological, theological and legal themes.165 The commentary of our specific interest, Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt (Subtleties of Allusions) integrates linguistic, theological and Sufi themes.166

163 Meier borrows this distinction from Ibn ʿAbbād al-Rundī (d./1390). Fritz Meier, “Khurāsān and the

End of Classical Sufism,” in Essays on Islamic Piety and Mysticism, Fritz Meier. Trans. John O’ Kane with editorial assistance of Bernd Radtke (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 217.

164 Nguyen, Sufi Master, 75-9.

165 For a discussion of the authenticity of two existing manuscripts commonly identified as al-Tafsīr al-kabīr see Martin Nguyen, “Al-Tafsīr al-kabīr: An Investigation of al-Qushayrī’s Major Qur’an

Commentary,” JSS 2 (2013): 17-45.

166 Nguyen, Sufi Master, 94-5.

72 The title of the work draws on one of the sayings attributed to Jaʿfar that al-Sulamī mentioned in his introduction. Unlike al-Sulamī, al-Qushayrī does not make a clear introductory statement in his work in which he defines what his approach to the Qurʾān is.

However, there are some indications in the introduction that point to the same core themes that al-Sulamī addressed: the idea that there is indeed a ‘deeper’ approach to the Qurʾān, an approach that unveils the “subtleties (laṭāʾif) of His mysteries and His illuminations in order to give insight into the subtleness of His signs (ishārāt) and the hiddenness of His symbols that encompass Him.”167 This is complementary to the exoteric understanding, and is an approach that is not equally accessible to every reader. These subtleties, so al-Qushayrī explains, God only bestows upon the pure ones (aṣfiyāʾ) among His servants, which for him equals the friends of God (awliyāʾ). It is a form of experiential knowledge (maʿrifa). It thus represents, in the words of Nguyen, an epistemology of “divine giving” rather than of

“active acquisition.”168

Like al-Sulamī, al-Qushayrī does not apply the word taṣawwuf or Sufi to this class of people. He defines them as the people of experiential knowledge and the possessors of realities (ahl al-maʿrifa wa aṣḥāb al-ḥaqāʾiq), whom he considers to be a special category of religious scholars (ʿulamāʾ) that are highest in the religious hierarchy and represent that section within the Islamic sciences through which the religion blossoms.169 Also, when he defines what he has tried to achieve in his introduction, the word taṣawwuf or Sufi is not explicitly mentioned: “This book of ours details, in accordance with the language of the

167 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, I, 41. The translation of the fragment is, with slight adaptations, by Nguyen, Sufi

Master, 122.

168 Nguyen, Sufi Master, 122.

169 Ibid., 123-25.

73 people of experiential knowledge, some of the allusions (ishārāt) of the Qurʾān, either in regard to their stated meanings or the matters of their foundations (uṣūl).”170

Although he quotes a large part of the sayings mentioned in the commentary of al-

Sulamī and has probably studied his commentary at his feet, al-Qushayrī significantly differs from his former teacher in his method of tafsīr. Where al-Sulamī only connected Sufi sayings to a limited amount of verses of the Qurʾān, al-Qushayrī also integrates the exoteric

Islamic sciences, while he works systematically through the Qurʾān in its entirety.

Philological, theological, legal and allusive (ishārī) approaches to the Qurʾān are not clearly separated in his commentary. He subtly switches from one approach to the other.

Sometimes, but not as a general rule, there seems to be a hierarchy at work in the commentary, from conventional readings to a Sufi climax: to get the ḥaqīqa right, one must first grasp the sharīʿa.171 The hermeneutical practice of al-Qushayrī shows a profound linguistic interest in the Qurʾān and is often illustrated with secular poetry, in which his training in the Arabic language and belles-lettres clearly shows.172 This high level of Arabic, as well as the concern with theological issues, shows that the work was carefully and thoughtfully composed, and not the result of an “inspired” ecstatic way of writing.173

The commentary most probably served to instruct his students in the madrasa, and may be seen as the result of years of teaching tafsīr to a specialized audience. The tone is often pedagogical, with a strong stress on adab both in its meaning of literature as well as

170 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, I, 41.

171 Nguyen, Sufi Master, 127.

172 Kristin Z. Sands, “On the Subtleties of Method and Style in the Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt of al-Qushayrī,” JSS

2 (2013): 7-8.

173 This is noted by Keeler, “Ṣūfī tafsīr as a Mirror,” 3. She contrasts it with the commentary of Sahl al-Tustarī, which she describes as the result of ecstatic authorship.

74 good manners, and the style shows traces of dictation to a specialized group.174 One might say that the purpose of the work was to create conceptual like-mindedness among his followers, with a stress on harmony between the Ashʿarī creed, Shāfiʿī law and mystical ideas. One could indeed say that both the aspects of taʿlīm and tarbiyya are reflected in the work, and that the work thus appears to be located in the middle of the shift that Meier described.175

5 Maybudī and his commentary

5.1 His life, education and works

Unlike in the cases of al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī, there is a dearth of biographical information on Rāshid al-Dīn Abū’l-Faḍl Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Maybudī. Even a death date is lacking. He supposedly lived from somewhere in the second half of the fifth/eleventh century to somewhere in the first half of the sixth/ twelfth century in the region of Yazd.176 The city of Yazd in this time was nominally part of the Saljūq dynasty, but the local lords, the Kākūyids, governed this part of Western Persia in relative independence.

Yazd flourished in this period and it was an important center of intellectual life.177 It is assumed that Maybudī was the son of Jamāl al-Islām Abū Saʿd b. Aḥmad b. Mihrīzad (d.

480/1087), a religious scholar and mystic of some standing. This makes it probable that he grew up in a stimulating environment for Islamic learning, and it is very likely that he

174 Nguyen, Sufi Master, 130-31; Ibrāhīm Basyūnī, al-Imām al-Qushayrī: sīratuhu, āthāruhu, madhhabuhu fī’l-taṣawwuf (Cairo: Majmaʿ al-buḥūth al-islāmiyya, 1972), 53; Sands, “Subtleties,” 15.

175 For the distinction between taʿlīm and tarbiyya see Meier, “Khurāsān,” 190-92.

176 EIr, s.v. Meybodi (A. Keeler), accessed on 30 September 2013. Maybud is a town near Yazd. The tomb of Maybudī’s possible father Jamāl al-Islām Abū Saʿīd b. Aḥmad b. Mehrizad (d. 1087) is situated there, which makes it plausible that this is indeed the place of birth of Rashīd al-Dīn.

177 EI2, s.v. Kākūyids, IV, 465-67 (C.E. Bosworth).

75 travelled to other centers of Islamic learning like Herat, Marv or Nishapur as well, to enhance his knowledge in the various Islamic sciences.178

Only two of his works are still extant: Kitāb al-fuṣūl (Book of Divisions), which is a short treatise on the virtues of officials of state and religion, and his voluminous Qurʾān commentary Kashf al-asrār wa-ʿuddat al-abrār (The Unveiling of Secrets and the Provision of the Pious). Besides these we know that he composed a collection of forty aḥādīth, the Kitāb-i arbaʿīn, which is no longer extant.179 Given the richness of his commentary Kashf al-asrār his religious profile can partly be reconstructed. He was a follower of the Shāfiʿī School in jurisprudence, but unlike most Shāfiʿīs he did not follow the Ashʿarī School in credal matters. He was inclined towards Ḥanbalism in this respect, which becomes apparent in his treatment of the issue of the ‘direction’ of God (which he considers to be ‘above’), the createdness of the Qurʾān (uncreated in meaning, letters and sounds) and attributes of God

(anthropomorphic references to God in the Qurʾān should not be interpreted metaphorically, but taken as they are without interpreting them).180 If he indeed spent time in Khurāsān, it is probably there that he came into contact with (followers of) ʿAbd Allāh al-

Anṣārī (d. 481/1089). The thought of al-Anṣārī, to whom he refers as pīr-i ṭarīqat (the master

178 EIr, s.v. Meybodi, (A. Keeler), accessed on 30 September 2013. Keeler believes he sojourned in

Herat for some time, because he uses the dialect of Herat in his commentary.

179 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 18-9.

180 Maybudī, Kashf, I,123; II, 237; III, 29, 169; VI, 111; VIII, 507. Cf. EIr, s.v. Meybodi (A. Keeler), accessed on 30 September 2013; Annabel Keeler, “Mystical Theology and the Traditionalist Hermeneutics of

Maybudī’s Kashf al-Asrār,” in Sufism and Theology, ed. Ayman Shihadeh (Edinburgh: Edinburg

University Press, 2007), 15-30.

76 of the path) in his commentary, influenced him greatly in matters of creed and mysticism, and put a stamp on his commentary.181

His approach to mysticism is according to Annabel Keeler largely determined by the rise of a love-oriented form of Sufism in Khurāsān. This focus on divine love has been present since the early times of Sufism, but it was in the period that Maybudī lived that it saw a definitive breakthrough on the Sufi scene of Khurāsān, largely because authors like

Aḥmad al-Ghazālī and Abū’l-Majd Majdūd Sanāʾī (d. 525/1131) expressed their thoughts in

Persian. Maybudī probably picked up this love mysticism during his study stays in the cities of Khurāsān.182

5.2 His commentary Kashf al-asrār wa-ʿuddat al-abrār

In his introduction Maybudī makes a clear statement about the purposes in writing his

Qurʾān commentary. He intends to help the “student seeking guidance” (al-mutaʿallim al- mustarshid) attain his goal with it, and to satisfy “who ponders and seeks insight” (al- mutaʾammil al-mustabṣir).183 Thus, his goal is explicitly to provide spiritual guidance to the reader. Apparently he thinks that for this guidance the reader needs an understanding of both the exoteric and the esoteric aspects of the Qurʾān. From several passages in the commentary it appears that he, like al-Qushayrī, sees an understanding of sharīʿa as a prerequisite for the understanding of the aspects of ḥaqīqa. This understanding of sharīʿa is both necessary and accessible for the masses (ʿawāmm), while the ḥaqīqa is only accessible

181 EIr, s.v. Meybodi (A. Keeler), accessed on 30 September 2013. ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī is known for his staunch position against kalām, a position that Maybudī seems to have shared with him. Keeler,

“Mystical Theology,” 16-7.

182 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 110. For a study of the theme of love in Ḥanbalism see Joseph N. Bell,

Love Theory in Later Ḥanbalite Islam (Albany: SUNY Press, 1979).

183 Maybudī, Kashf, I, 1. Translation from Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 40.

77 for the elect (khawāṣṣ).184 The commentary is thus intended to be an encompassing work that offers the aspirant all he needs to embark on the path of Sufism.

The commentary of Maybudī brings some innovations to the genre. Firstly, he was the first commentator to write a Sufi commentary in the Persian language. Secondly, where al-Sulamī only collected and presented mystical understandings of the Qurʾānic text, and al-

Qushayrī subtly integrated different strands of tafsīr, in the commentary of Maybudī we for the first time witness a strict separation of the exoteric and the mystical in different sections within one work. He divides his commentary into sessions (majlishā), which may be an indication that the work was meant to be taught, and perhaps was even composed from notes of teaching sessions. These sessions are subsequently divided into three ‘turns’

(nawbathā). In the first nawbat he gives a Persian translation of the verses of the Qurʾān.185

The second nawbat then consists of straightforward philological, theological and legal commentary, in both Arabic and Persian. It is in the third nawbat that mystical reflections on the verses are presented, and that he shows himself from a more artistic, mostly Persian literary side.186 In the expression of his mystical ideas he permits himself a more free and effusive style than al-Qushayrī. It is perhaps because of the clear separation of the exoteric and the mystical in his commentary, that exoteric understandings have not too much of a

‘sobering’ effect on his mystical utterings.

For his exoteric nawbat he quotes scores of mainstream exegetical works including the likes of al-Ṭabarī (d. 311/933) and Ibn Qutayba (d. 247/887). The major source for the mystical parts of his commentary is the (no longer extant) tafsīr of ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī,

184 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 55-7.

185 This was not very unusual in Maybudī’s time. For early translations of the Qurʾān into Persian and their relation to the genre of tafsīr see Travis Zadeh, The Vernacular Qurʾan: translation and the rise of

Persian exegesis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Zadeh also treats Maybudī in this work.

186 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 19.

78 whom he quotes throughout his commentary preceded by the words “pīr-i ṭarīqat guft” (“the master of the path said”). He quotes munājāt (intimate conversations with God) related by al-Anṣārī, aphorisms and theological sermons.187

Only at the end of the commentary he further unfolds his criteria of interpretation.

He advocates a combination of tafsīr bi’l-maʾthur (exegesis by transmitted reports) and tafsīr bi’l-raʾy (exegesis by opinion): when a scholar has mastered the sciences needed for tafsīr bi’l-maʾthūr he can within those boundaries freely engage with the text and express his own opinions beside the transmitted understandings. For someone with traditionist-Ḥanbalī inclinations, he reserves quite some space for expressing one’s own opinion and benefiting spiritually and intellectually from the mutashābih verses.188 This already shows in his second section (nawbat), where he interweaves transmitted opinions with his own observations, anecdotes and devotional passages.189 But it is also this created space for a personal engagement with the Qurʾānic text that paves the way for his mystical understanding of the Qurʾān. He further does not explicitly seek to justify his mystical understanding of the Qurʾān as al-Sulamī did, which may mean that it had become an accepted and established practice when he wrote his work.

187 Ibid., 20-2.

188 Maybudī, Kashf, X, 679; Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 41-2.

189 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 50-1.

79 6 Al-Daylamī and his commentary

6.1 Who was Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī?

As is the case with Maybudī, we are confronted with a dearth of biographical information on Shams al-Dīn Abū Thābit Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Malik al-Ṭūṣi al-Daylamī.190 Though his full name is known and we have manuscripts of his major Sufi works, biographical details about the author are lacking. This makes it hard to properly contextualize his works in the circles of influence of the intellectual, social and political environment in which he worked.

We know nothing about his education, his teachers, his students, his institutional affiliation, his whereabouts etc. Islamic biographers did not seem to care a great deal about him and his works have remained in relative obscurity. Even the period in which he lived is not entirely clear. Brockelmann, following an entry in Pertsch, dated one of his works to be written in 899/1493, probably based on a misprint in Ḥājjī Khalīfa’s Kashf al-ẓunūn. The 1941

Istanbul edition of Kashf al-ẓunūn corrects this date and places the work no less than two

Hijri centuries earlier, in 699/1300. To make the confusion even bigger, the same Ḥājji

190 He is not mentioned in the Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn of al-Dāwūdī, al-Suyūṭī and al-Adnarwī. Thus far only few articles have appeared on al-Daylamī and the extant manuscripts of his works that only scratch the surface of some of his ideas and do not contain substantial biographical details. See

Arthur J. Arberry, “The Works of Shams al-Dīn al-Dailamī,” BSOAS 29, no. 1 (1966): 49-56; Gerhard

Böwering, “The Writings of Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī,” Islamic Studies 26, no. 3 (1987): 231-36. In recent scholarship some specific aspects of his works have been analyzed, but these studies have not revealed new biographical material. Elizabeth R. Alexandrin, “Witnessing the Lights of the Heavenly

Dominion: Dreams, Visions and the Mystical Exegeses of Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī,” in Dreams and

Visions in Islamic Societies, eds. Özgen Felek and Alexander D. Knysh (Albany: SUNY Press, 2012), 215-

32; Elizabeth R. Alexandrin, “‘Minding the Body’: Corporeality in Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī’s

Treatises,” Ishraq: Islamic Philosophy Yearbook 4 (2013): 526-39.

80 Khalīfa in another entry states he died yet another century earlier, after 589/1193.191 Jāmī mentions him in his Nafaḥāt al-Uns and places him in the 7th/14th century. Arberry confirms

589/1193 as his death date. Böwering holds this date to be a copying mistake as well and states it should be 587/1191.192

A close reading of the tafsīr of al-Daylamī reveals some small autobiographical hints however. The first hint comes in his introduction to the tafsīr, and gives the impression of a

Ghazālī-like trope of spiritual crisis. Not devoid of drama he states that he spent years of his life, like many other people, despising the Sufis and cursing them in his books and writings.193 However, this attitude eventually made him feel really bad. Physicians thought melancholy (sawdāʾ) had taken the upper hand in him, and he tried their prescribed cure for it. He states that his situation got worse and worse and that he was only cured from this after a mystical experience of travelling through the cosmos, from the highest point of creation (al-ʿilliyīn) to the lowest of the lowest (asfal al-sāfilīn), and to the worlds of divine power and dominion (ʿālam al-jabarūt wa’l-malakūt). Back on his feet again, he realized that his mystical experiences were the same as those that the awliyāʾ described in their sayings, which he always used to rebuke. It was from that point that he started defending the claims and sayings of the Sufis by referring to Qurʾān and sunna.194 It is I think from this remark that his intention to write a Qurʾān commentary should be understood: as an attempt to show that the concepts and ideas of Sufis have a sound basis in the verses of the Qurʾān, an apology for Sufism in the form of a tafsīr.

191 Arberry, “Works of al-Dailamī,” 4.

192 Böwering, “Writings of al-Daylamī,” 231-32.

193 These writings must not have been too impressive to the scholarly audience, since it is only his

Sufi writings that are still known to us in manuscript form and apparently were deemed worthy of copying and spreading.

194 Abū Thābit Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” Yeni Cami 57, folio 1b-2a.

81 A second remarkable passage in his commentary on Q6:68 deals with the question whether it is permissible to sit with the worldly authorities:

[…] the verse contains a prohibition of sitting with oppressors with no distinction between the oppressor (ẓālim), the unjust (fāsiq) and the unbeliever (kāfir). His saying: {Do not sit after the reminder}, meaning: after the conveyance of the message with the oppressors. I myself have repeatedly been forbidden from the company of the people of oppression of our time. He [probably one of his teachers in Sufism] once said: “Do not set one step with this oppressor,” and he pointed to a specific person from the leaders of the army. When I neglected that and aimed to go to the army camp to see him, and when I put on my shoes, I saw the gate of the town being closed, which is the gate of the army camp. So I took off my shoes and left [the idea of] seeing them. Then after a while, in the period of the sojourn of the Sultan and the leaders in Hamadan he said: “Do not see any of those oppressors!” I said: “Were I to refrain from seeing them, then they would accuse me of treachery (tanammus).” He said: “No, commit treachery. Treachery is more beloved to me than seeing them.” So I said: “A person among them is my sergeant (ʿarīf), and we know each other a long time, I certainly must see him.” He said: “Perhaps, but you will be lost.” And when he gave permission by his saying ‘perhaps,’ I went to see them and they inflicted a lot of damage upon me, and I became needy of their assistance to me that I desired, to the extent that those people that I put most of my hope on handed me over to my enemy. This story serves to teach that the company of oppressors is the ruination of this world and the veil from the otherworld.195

A couple of tentative conclusions can be drawn from this passage. Firstly, it confirms that al-Daylamī spent at least some time of his life in or near the city of Hamadan, the capital

(dār al-mulk) of the empire of the ʿIrāqī Saljūqs, and that he was there at a moment that the

Sultan and his entourage sojourned there.196 According to Bert Fragner in his study on

Hamadan, this was a yearly habit of the Saljūq Sultans during a couple of weeks in summer.

195 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 45ab.

196 One manuscript, Radd ʿalā al-ḥulūliyya, indeed adds the nisba al-Hamadānī to his name, which may show that his relationship to the city was more than shallow. Abū Thābit Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī,

“Radd ʿalā al-ḥulūliyya,” Ibrahim Efendi 860, folio 108a.

82 The Saljūq reign of the city ended in 590/1193.197 This makes it plausible that al-Daylamī must have lived before this date, and that the year of death proposed by Arberry and

Böwering is more plausible than those that place it in later centuries.

It also shows that apparently it was the habit for religious scholars to visit the Sultan at that time, and that not to go there was considered an act of disloyalty, which is probably what the word tanammus alludes to.198 Furthermore, the fact that he states that one among the army is his former sergeant (ʿarīf) might mean that al-Daylamī himself had a history in the army, or at least some form of relationship with the worldly authorities through patronage. Given the remarkable ending of the autobiographical anecdote, apparently he got involved with them again and regretted it bitterly, which made him turn away from them completely.

Al-Daylamī seems not only to have been a bit of a ‘lone wolf’ and a ‘minor’ figure in the history of Sufism, he also seems to have been relatively detached from the center and its institutions. To call him a peripheral figure would perhaps go to far, but it is clear that he was not part of the central power of his age.199 The passage we just discussed shows an attitude of reluctance of engaging oneself with the worldly authorities, and thus of

197 Bert Fragner, Geschichte der Stadt Hamadān und ihrer Umgebung in den ersten Sechs Jahrhunderten nach der Hiğra – Von d. Eroberung durch die Araber bis zum Untergang d. “ʿIrāq-Selčuken” (Wien: Verlag

Notring, 1972), 178.

198 This habit is indeed confirmed in other studies. For the relation of the Saljūq rulers with the scholarly class and Sufi authorities see Deborah G. Tor, “‘Sovereign and Pious’: The Religious Life of the Great Seljuq Sultans,” in The Seljuqs: Politics, Society and Culture, eds. Christian Lange and Songül

Mecit (Edinburgh: Edinburg University Press, 2011), 49-53; Dabashi, “Historical Conditions”; Omid

Safi, The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam: Negotiating Ideology and Religious Inquiry (Chapel Hill:

The University of North Carolina Press, 2006).

199 Fragner also points out how Hamadan more and more became a center of “un-orthodox” movements. Fragner, Stadt Hamadān, 128.

83 detachment from the political centre. Marshall Hodgson has stated that the Middle Periods, the period in which al-Daylamī lived, may be defined as the period in which the Islamicate world lacked a central political and bureaucratic authority.200 The typical population of the cities were divided into three groups: the amīr and his troops and dependants, the ordinary city population, and the religious classes, especially the ʿulamāʾ.201 The amīrs and the ʿulamāʾ formed essentially independent institutions, with each their own channels of authority.

Sufis were reluctant to accept revenues from the amīr, out of fear that it could consist of illicit (ḥarām) money.202 Bert Fragner confirms this image in his study on the history of

Hamadan: the larger part of the 6th/12th century, in which al-Daylamī most likely lived, was a time of political instability for the city and the region.203

Besides his Qurʾān commentary he wrote a fair amount of other works and treatises, both major and minor, and most of them related to either kalām or Sufism, or a combination of both. His major works consist of a collection of ḥadīth, a summary of glosses on Sufi sayings, a compendium of Sufi cosmology, an epitome of Sufi ethics, a digest of Sufi theology and a tract on Sufi psychology.204 His works testify to an engagement with Sufism

200 Hodgson, Venture of Islam, II, 68.

201 Ibid., II, 109-10.

202 Ibid., 96.

203 Fragner, Stadt Hamadān, 111-33.

204 Böwering, “Writings of al-Daylamī,” 232. Unfortunately we do not have the space in this dissertation to give a thorough representation of the ideas he exposes in these works. All of these works are still waiting to be critically edited and to be properly studied. Given the personal visionary character of the works in combination with cosmology, theology and metaphysics may be rewarding for a better understanding of the shifts that take place in Sufi thought in this period.

According to Böwering “Daylamī bridges the gap in 6th/12th century Sufism between ʿAyn al-Quḍāt al-Ḥamadānī and Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrā and foreshadows ideas that emerge in the Kubrawī school and the Ḥurūfī sect.” Böwering, “Writings of al-Daylamī,” 235.

84 that is shaped by theological, cosmological and metaphysical concepts combined with personal visionary mystical elements. Böwering holds that as such “Daylamī’s writings mark a stage of transition in Sufi thought breaking away from karāmāt and legend and turning to wāqiʿāt and dreams. The visionary world of the mystic is seen as totally real and fully identical with the spiritual world of the invisible realm.”205

6.2 His commentary Taṣdīq al-maʿārif

The commentary of al-Daylamī is known by two different titles: Taṣdīq al-maʿārif (The

Confirmation of the Experiential Forms of Knowledge) and Futūḥ al-Raḥmān fī ishārāt al-

Qurʾān (Revelations of the Merciful in the Allusions of the Qurʾān). It is not clear why it has reached us under two different titles and whether the author himself has chosen these titles. It is clear though through the choice of terms such as maʿārif and ishārāt in the title that the works were considered to be part of the growing number of commentaries that used this vocabulary to describe its hermeneutics. Indeed, in the introduction al-Daylamī quotes the same sayings also quoted by al-Sulamī about the multiple meanings of Qurʾānic verses.206

We already discussed the ‘conversion’ to Sufism that he describes in his introduction to the work. He further makes a clear statement of what he intends by this commentary:

“This is a commentary on some verses of the Qurʾān, which Sufis need in their affairs, sayings and acts, and it demonstrates the correctness of their sayings and acts, and it testifies to the trustworthiness of their sayings in their stations.”207 So the commentary is clearly perceived to be an apology for his and others’ Sufi ideas, legitimizing them by linking them to Qurʾānic verses.

205 Böwering, “Writings of al-Daylamī,” 235.

206 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 2a.

207 Ibid., folio 1b.

85 Approximately half of the tafsīr consists of al-Sulamī and his sources. Al-Daylamī did not just import it, but elaborated on it as well. The other half is of himself. He did not use al-

Qushayrī as a source directly, but does occasionally quote al-Qushayrī’s teacher al-

Daqqāq. 208 He sometimes quotes exoteric authorities as well, but it would be an overstatement to say that the work is partly exoteric. The commentary is eclectic in its content, and treats, often in a dialectic manner, many mystical, theological, cosmological and metaphysical ideas that are also reflected in his other works. It is sometimes polemical in its tone and content, for example in its argumentation against the ḥulūliyya and the philosophers. It seems that through his commentary he wanted to provide the reader with argumentative underpinnings for his visionary mysticism.

Unlike the commentaries before him, his commentary does not bear clear traces of an intention to teach the work. We do not have enough biographical information to know whether he had the institutional affiliation to do this, or even whether he had a group of students or pupils that he guided on the mystical path, but the lack of teaching-related terms and style further supports the impression that al-Daylamī operated largely from without the institutionalized framework of Sufism at the time.

7 Rūzbihān al-Baqlī and his commentary

7.1 His life, education and works

Ṣadr al-Dīn b. Abī Naṣr Rūzbihān al-Fasāʾī al-Daylamī al-Baqlī al-Shīrāzī (d. 606/1209) was born in 522/1128 in the Persian town of Pasā, to a family with Daylamite roots.209 According to his mystical autobiography Kashf al-asrār he grew up in an environment that had a

208 Böwering, “Writings of al-Daylamī,” 232.

209 Not everyone is in agreement on this year of birth. For a detailed discussion of all possibilities see

Alan A. Godlas, “The ʿArāʾis al-bayān,” 4-11.

86 disregard for religious matters.210 He claims to have had mystical visionary experiences from his early childhood. In his early adulthood he claimed to have had an unveiling (kashf) that persuaded him to leave everything behind and wander through the desert in a state of ecstasy (wajd) for one and a half years. He is said to have joined the Sufis in a hospice (ribāṭ) around 538-9/1143-4, where he got his Sufi education and disciplinary training, and memorized the Qurʾān. It is not clear where this happened and how long this period lasted, but it may have been in Shiraz. It was probably also in Shiraz that he received his training in the religious sciences from the leading scholars of his time. After that, there is a gap of two decades in his biography, in which he allegedly travelled extensively through Syria, ʿIrāq,

Kirmān and made the pilgrimage to Mecca.211 He finally settled in Shiraz, where he established his own convent in 560/1165. He became preacher in the grand mosque, the masjid-i ʿatīq, and spent the rest of his life preaching and teaching until he passed away in

606/1209.212

Rūzbihān lived in a time of political unrest. The region of Shiraz nominally fell under

Saljūq rule, but their central government was in decline. The political power was largely shifting towards semi-autonomous atabegs who started their own hereditary rule in Fārs.213

This process took place during the life of Rūzbihān, and caused instability. It is not really

210 For a critical edition of this autobiography see Firoozeh Papan-Matin and Michael Fishbein, eds.,

The Unveiling of Secrets Kashf al-Asrār: The Visionary Autobiography of Rūzbihān al-Baqlī (1128-1209 AD)

(Leiden: Brill, 2006). For a translation into English see Carl Ernst, trans. The Unveiling of Secrets: Diary of a Sufi Master (Chapel Hill: Parvardigar Press, 1997).

211 Ernst, Ruzbihan, 1-6; EI2, s.v. Rūzbihān, VIII, 651-52 (C.W. Ernst).

212 Paul Ballanfat, Quatre traités inédits de Ruzbehân Baqlî Shîrâzî: textes arabes avec un commentaire

(Tehran: Institut français de recherche en Iran, 1988), 71-5.

213 EI2, s.v. Atabak, I, 731 (C. Cahen); Godlas, “The ʿArāʾis al-bayān,” 1-3.

87 clear in which way this affected him.214 There are some, possibly hagiographic, anecdotes that speak of a positive relationship with the atabegs.215

He was very productive as a writer, in both Arabic and Persian. Around 30 Sufi works are ascribed to him. Besides his numerous Sufi works, he wrote treatises in several exoteric

Islamic sciences as well, among which are an exoteric Qurʾān commentary, works of ḥadīth,

Islamic law and its fundamentals, Arabic language and grammar, and creed.216 His Sufi works testify to an ecstatic visionary approach to Sufism, expressed in a dense prosaic style.

They contain rich descriptions of theophanies (tajalliyāt) and mystical states of ecstasy. His preference for ecstatic utterances earned him the title shaykh-i shaṭṭāḥ (Doctor

Ecstaticus).217

7.2 His commentary ʿArāʾis al-bayān fī ḥaqāʾiq al-qurʾān

Although it is an important and in many ways interesting work, the ʿArā’is al-bayān fī ḥaqāʾiq al-qurʾān has not yet been the subject of a monograph like the works of al-Qushayrī and

Maybudī. We are still awaiting a proper and in-depth analysis of Rūzbihān’s Qurʾānic hermeneutics and the complex system of thought he tried to link to the Qurʾān in his commentary. This will be a crucial enterprise for a better understanding of the life and

214 Godlas suggests, without presenting convincing evidence, that some of his mystical conversions and wanderings may have had something to do with this unrest. Godlas, “The ʿArāʾis al-bayān,” 4. In

Kashf al-asrār Rūzbihān mentions the troubled, epidemic times in which he lives, and asks God to keep him away from the rulers: “Then I asked God most high that he free me from entering the courts of princes. After dawn, one of God’s orders (glory be to him) came down, and he freed me from seeing them or associating with them at that time.” Baqli, Kashf (trans. Ernst), 141.

215 Ibid., 13-16; Ernst, Ruzbihan, 132-34.

216 For a list of his works see appendix A in Ernst, Ruzbihan, 151-60.

217 EI2, s.v. Rūzbihān, VIII, 651-52 (C.W. Ernst).

88 works of Rūzbihān. In this dissertation I cannot offer more than a first modest step toward that goal.

Like al-Sulamī’s works his commentary contains an introductory statement. There he explains his motivation to embark on this project in his typical ecstatic style, stating that

“ I did not become occupied with this affair until after experiential knowledge and divine wisdom had overwhelmed my heart” and “when I found that the pre-eternal Word had no limit in the outer and the inner, and that none of God’s creation had reached its perfection and the ultimate degree of its meanings – because underlying each of Its letters is an ocean of secrets and a river of lights.”218 He subsequently also quotes the same sayings on the multiple meanings of the Qurʾān that al-Sulamī mentions in his introduction.219 Motivated by these sayings and the realization that the meanings of the Qurʾān are endless, he decided to compose his commentary with “handfuls of pre-eternal wisdom and post-eternal indications of which the understanding of the scholar and the mind of the philosopher fall short”.220 He considers this to follow the footsteps of the awliyāʾ and prophets, and expresses his debt to commentators who have preceded him. He states that he wanted to be brief, and therefore left out many of their sayings. Where he mentions them however, he does it after his own sayings, to seek their blessing through it.221

The content of ʿArāʾis al-bayān is entirely mystical, and leaves out exoteric aspects of interpretation. The work follows the sequence of the Qurʾān from al-Fātiḥa to al-Nās.

Rūzbihān does not comment on every Qurʾānic verse, but only on verses that he deems relevant. He first gives his own commentary, and only then mentions the opinions of his predecessors. He relies heavily upon al-Sulamī’s material and the Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt by al-

218 Translation from Godlas, “The ʿArāʾis al-bayān,” 60.

219 Ibid., 60-4.

220 Ibid., 65.

221 Ibid., 65-6.

89 Qushayrī, whom he quotes as al-Ustādh (the Master). In the following chapters we will have ample space to see what this looks like in practice.

8 Conclusion

Have we now come closer to an understanding of what a ‘Sufi’ commentary entails? Is one justified to speak of Sufi tafsīr as a separate genre? On the one hand, we see a great variety in hermeneutical approaches and literary style, which clearly gives every tafsīr its own distinctive identity. While al-Sulamī was first and foremost a collector and organizer of existing esoteric material, al-Qushayrī smoothly combined a sober, mystical approach with theological and philological concerns, on a very sophisticated level of Arabic. Maybudī gave a lot of space to the exoteric sciences, and had a more literary artistic and less sober style in his mystical parts in Persian. With al-Daylamī we see yet again a new dimension, with his dialectic-theological and visionary mysticism, and the disappearance of exoteric commentary. In the work of Rūzbihān we see a continuation and amplification of this strictly esoteric style. He is hardly comparable to his predecessors in his ecstatic, visionary flowing style and content. While the works of al-Sulamī, al-Qushayrī and Maybudī were probably meant to teach and to guide and train pupils, it is doubtful whether this was the intention of the last two authors. There seems to be a shift between the former and the latter in authorial intent in this respect, as well as in style and content.

On the other hand, there is continuity as well. Drawing upon the same authoritative statements of the likes of ʿAlī and Jaʿfar, all seem to agree upon certain hermeneutical principles, and use more or less the same vocabulary to signify these principles.222 The fact that they all fall back on the same earlier authorities provides a strong reason to consider

222 For an overview of the continuity in these principles and their vocabulary see Sands, Ṣūfī

Commentaries, 35-46 and Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 69-74.

90 their works a separate genre, and to assume that above authors themselves considered them as such. This makes these works genealogical: the authors place themselves in a tradition of scholarship and only propound their own ideas and allusions against the background of earlier authorities. Al-Sulamī collects all the sayings on Qurʾānic verses by earlier generations of mystics. Al-Qushayrī cites al-Sulamī. Maybudī cites, albeit through the lost tafsīr of al-Anṣārī, both al-Qushayrī and al-Sulamī. Al-Daylamī cites al-Qushayrī‘s teacher al-Daqqāq, and al-Sulamī. Rūzbihān cites al-Qushayrī and al-Sulamī.223 It is evident from this that al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī started something new within the genre of tafsīr, something that the later authors felt the need to relate to, to give legitimacy to their own additions. How this genealogical nature of the genre works in practice, and what it teaches us about the theological and mystical choices of the authors we will further examine in the case studies in the second part of this dissertation.

Although it is certainly justifiable to conceive of these works as a genre on these grounds, to conceive of it as a genre of ‘Sufi’ tafsīr does remain problematic. The authors themselves did not once use the term ‘Sufi’ to describe their own works or hermeneutical method.224 The fact that all authors can be identified as Sufis cannot be the only criterion to classify these works as Sufi tafsīr. After all, Sufis also wrote works of tafsīr according to conventional methods of interpretation, focusing on the apparent (ẓāhir) meanings of the

Qurʾānic text –sometimes even interwoven within their ishārī works, like in the cases of al-

223 For the influence of most notably al-Qushayrī on the works of Maybudī and Rūzbihān see Keeler,

Sufi Hermeneutics, 22, 34 n 135, 90-2, and Alan Godlas, “Influences of Qushayrī’s Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt on

Sufi Qur’anic Commentaries, Particularly Rūzbihān al-Baqlī’s ʿArāʾis al-bayān and the Kubrawi al-

Taʾwīlāt al-najmiyya,” JSS 2 (2013): 78-92. Godlas suggests that Rūzbihān’s purpose in quoting al-

Sulamī and al-Qushayrī was “to demonstrate the presence of a historical tradition of Sufi esoteric

Qur’an commentary of which he was a continuing and contributing member.” Godlas, “Influences,”

87.

224 This is also noted by Sands, Ṣūfī Commentaries, 4.

91 Qushayrī and Maybudī. This issue of terminology thus remains unresolved. We will get back to this issue at later points in this study.

In this chapter I have offered some biographical context to the five main authors of this study and their works. It may be clear that all authors were situated quite close to the

‘centre’, all functioning as scholars of the ‘outward’ (ẓāhir) disciplines of religious knowledge besides their specialism in Sufism, and to varying degrees (with al-Daylamī as the exception) maintaining constructive relationships with the worldly powers of their time. In the following chapters I hope to show how their approach to the Qurʾān in their commentaries worked out in practice, and how their wider ‘circles of influence’ are reflected in their ideas on the hereafter and the vision of God. We will now make the first step in this endeavor, by discussing their ideas on Paradise and Hell as reflected in their commentaries.

92 2 The ultimate boundary crossing: Paradise and Hell in the commentaries

1 Introduction

In this chapter we will give an overview of the dominant eschatological themes found in the commentaries. We will start with a discussion of existing literature on eschatology in the formative and ‘classical’ periods of Sufism and offer a typology of themes. After this, we will analyze sayings on verses on Paradise and Hell collected in the Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr and to a lesser extent the Ziyādāt ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr of al-Sulamī. Through his works we will try to reconstruct the developments in Sufi thought on Paradise and Hell in the formative period.

From there we move on to the other four commentaries. We will seek to understand if, how and why conceptions of the hereafter changed, what main topics and themes are shared by all commentaries, as well as significant differences between the approaches of the commentators towards the hereafter.

2 Attitudes towards the hereafter in the formative period of Sufism

In a recent study on Sufi eschatological conceptions, Christian Lange has discerned seven

attitudes towards the hereafter.225 The first two attitudes both have their root in the early

renunciant movement (zuhd) in Islam. The general tendency within the zuhd movement

was to stress that a pious person should strive for the hereafter, by disentangling oneself

from this lower life and struggle against one’s worldly desires and aspirations. This roughly

led to two attitudes, emphasizing either the punishment or the reward in the hereafter.

The first attitude emphasized the fear of Hell (khawf) as a way to cultivate piety. The second

225 Lange, Paradise and Hell, ch. 7; Lange, “A Sufi’s Paradise and Hell,” 193-96.

93 attitude focused on the longing for Paradise (rajāʾ). The third and fourth attitudes took

shape as a ‘cold’ and ‘hot’ antithesis to the attitudes of these early zuhhād. Both take as

axiomatic that an exaggerated fixation on either the enjoyment of Paradise or the

punishment of Hell distracts from what truly matters in the hereafter: God himself, His

contentment, being near Him and the vision of Him. The ‘cold’ response did not deny the

reality of the otherworldly reward and punishment, but merely stressed that the true

reward and punishment was to be either near to or far from God. The ‘hot’ response then,

was a form of “dhamm al-ākhira,” an outright contempt of Paradise and Hell, considering

them something that veils the believer from God.226 The fifth and sixth attitude are related

to trends of monism in Sufi thought, and conceive of an immanent Paradise and Hell. The

fifth attitude recognizes Paradise and Hell in aspects of this-worldly creation, in the

macrocosm. The sixth attitude considers Paradise and Hell to be immanent in the

microcosm: they can be found within the inner constitution of man. The seventh attitude

consists of cosmological speculation on themes as the isthmus (barzakh), and finds its most

prominent representant in Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240).227

Another, older study on Sufi conceptions of the otherworld is contained in La vie future selon le Coran by Soubhi El-Saleh. Rather than analyzing these conceptions thematically and classifying them according to their attitude towards the otherworld as

Lange does, he takes historical periods as the basis of his analysis. The central question for him is how the Sufis perceived joy and torment: did they do away with the concrete

226 Dhamm al-ākhira is our own term for this concept, derived from dhamm al-dunyā, a common concept in Sufism. Christian Lange calls this contemptus ultramundi, derived from contemptus mundi.

Lange, Paradise and Hell, ch. 7. Massignon holds that the idea that focusing on the recompense of

Paradise distracts from God is a theme that Islam has borrowed from Hinduism. Massignon, Essay,

67.

227 Lange, Paradise and Hell, ch. 7.

94 character of Qurʾānic descriptions of Paradise and Hell, or were they forced to recognize its reality to a certain extent? In the first case, how did they do away with it, and in the second case, what is the nature of this reality? He distinguishes five different periods: (i) the first two centuries of Islam, (ii) the third and fourth century, (iii) the fifth century, (iv) the sixth and seventh century, and (v) after the seventh century. In the first period El-Saleh distinguishes two different ascetic trends, which both did not want to deny the reality of reward and punishment: an asceticism in which the fear of punishment and desire for recompense is equally dominant, represented by al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728) and the mystics of Baṣra, and an asceticism in which the accent is on the love of God as the essential motivation of obedience rather than reward and punishment, represented by Rābiʿa al-

ʿAdawiyya (d. 185/801). This second trend, though considering it secondary, certainly did not wholly deny the physical reality of Paradise and Hell. In the second period this focus on the love for God was further developed, with a whole new lexicon to describe it. The idea became more abstract, and the religious sciences became separated into exoteric and esoteric. However, this did not lead to a refusal of the exoteric sciences by mystics. They kept recognizing the physical reality of Paradise and Hell. In the third and fourth period this remains the dominant idea: Paradise and Hell are real, but only secondary to the meeting with and contemplation of God.228

In what follows, we will combine the approaches of Lange and El-Saleh, and undertake a diachronic study of the attitudes found in the works of tafsīr of the five authors that we have discussed in chapter 1. All of them are composed in what El-Saleh has defined as the second and the third period, and what are generally considered the end of the

‘formative’ and ‘classical’ period of Sufi tafsīr.229

228 El-Saleh, Vie future, 91-111. Cf. Vakily, “Mystical Significance of Paradise,” 407-11.

229 El-Saleh, Vie future, 91; Böwering, “Commentary of al-Sulamī,” 42-3; Godlas, “Ṣūfism,” 351-52;

Ateș, İşārī tefsīr okulu, 3-8.

3 Eschatological commentary of al-Sulamī’s major sources

In our reading of al-Sulamī’s Qurʾān commentaries, we have identified sayings with an eschatological character from no less than 23 different authorities. Since our goal is to understand the development and dynamics of Sufi eschatological ideas in the formative period, we will now first discuss the ideas of the most significant and most frequently quoted personalities by al-Sulamī, in chronological order. We will relate them to the six attitudes described by Lange, and the chronological development as outlined by El-Saleh.

3.1 Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/756)

The oldest personality that al-Sulamī quotes in his commentary is Medina-based Jaʿfar al-

Ṣādiq.230 Only few eschatological remarks can be found in the quotes attributed to Jaʿfar.

None of these are focused on Hell, all on Paradise and especially the ultimate reward therein: the meeting with and vision of God. Commenting on Q39:25 he states: “If you look to other than Him, meeting with Him in the otherworld is forbidden for you.”231 This theme comes up in more sayings, for example on Q43:71, And therein is whatever the souls desire and delights the eyes:

What a difference between what is desired and what delights the eyes. Because all that is situated in the Garden of happiness, desires and delights is in comparison to what delights the eyes like a finger dipped into the sea, because the desires of the Garden have a limit and an end, because they are created. The eyes are not delighted

230 For a discussion on the authenticity of the sayings attributed to Jaʿfar in the Ḥaqāʾiq, see Chapter

One, footnote 132.

231 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, II, 203.

96 in the enduring abode (dār al-qarār) except by looking at the Remaining, the Exalted, and that has no limit, no attribute and no end.232

The men whom neither trade nor commerce distract from the remembrance of God (Q24:37) are described as people who are neither distracted by this lower world, nor by the hereafter and its rewards. The interior gardens of intimacy with God and remembrance of Him

(basātīn al-uns wa-riyāḍ al-dhikr) are enough for them.233 Commenting on Q68:34, Indeed, for those wary of God (muttaqīn) are the gardens of bliss with their Lord, he further states that who wards oneself from sins is rewarded with the Garden. Who belongs to those wary of God attains more than that: he will be unveiled and will witness the Real (al-Ḥaqq) in all states.234 Entering the Garden by His mercy and gazing (naẓar) upon His noble face are among the gifts of God.235 The sweetness of this gazing “continues to shine on their faces, like the sun, when they return from visiting God to their homelands [in Paradise].”236 The friends of God (awliyāʾ) are especially entitled to this honor according to Jaʿfar. On Q54:55, In a trustworthy place, near a Sovereign Omnipotent, he comments:

232 Ibid., II, 236. A variant on this quote is also included by al-Sulamī in his minor commentary. At the end of that quote a credal statement is added on the modality of the vision of God: “{What the souls desire} is the Garden and its bliss and the breeze (al-rawḥ) therein to the greatest contentment (al- riḍwān al-akbar). {And enraptures the eye} A knower (ʿārif) and a lover (muḥibb) is only enraptured by the look to his object of experiential knowledge (maʿrūf) and his beloved (maḥbūb). And what the souls desire is in comparison to what enraptures the eyes of the bliss (al-naʿīm) like a drop in the oceans. The souls desire food and drink and the bliss in the Garden, and the eyes are enraptured by looking at God without mentioning how (bi-lā kayfiyya).” Sulamī, Ziyādāt, 168.

233 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, II, 53.

234 Ibid., II, 345.

235 Ibid., II, 369.

236 Ibid., II, 382.

97 He praised the place by [using the concept of] trustworthiness. No one sits in it except the people of trustworthiness, which is the seat in which God fulfills the promises to his awliyāʾ, that is, He allows them to look at His noble face.237

If one accepts these sayings as Jaʿfar’s, they would imply that the focus on God rather than the enjoyments of Paradise was already present at a quite early stage of Sufism, indeed earlier than (or at least contemporary with) Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya (d.

185/801), who is often associated with the introduction of this theme in Sufism.238 This combined with the absence of sayings on Hell makes one wonder whether these sayings are perhaps indeed later than claimed. As El-Saleh has pointed out, the early renunciants were known for their emphasis on Hell and their fear of it, and it is only in the 3rd century that love mysticism comes to rise.239 Based on this it might indeed be likely that the sayings attributed to Jaʿfar are rather a reflection of 3rd century ideas projected back on him than an authentic source.

3.2 Dhū al-Nūn al-Miṣrī (d. 246/861)

From the Egyptian mystic Dhū al-Nūn al-Miṣrī only one long eschatological quote attributed to him is included.240 In the commentary on Q22:27, which deals with the pilgrimage (ḥajj),

237 Ibid., II, 291.

238 El-Saleh, Vie future, 95-6.To Rābiʿa the following saying is attributed, which is often considered the symbol of the shift from asceticism to love-based mysticism: “I have not served God from fear of

Hell, for I should be but a wretched hireling if I did it from fear; nor from love of Paradise, for I should be a bad servant if I served for the sake of what was given me, but I have served Him only for the love of Him and desire of Him.” EI2, s.v. Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya al-Ḳaysiyya, VIII, 355 (M. Smith).

239 El-Saleh, Vie future, 93.

240 Dhū al-Nūn still deserves more historicizing research than is currently available. A good recent overview can be found in Michael Ebstein, “Dū l-Nūn al-Miṣrī and Early Islamic Mysticism,” Arabica

98 he links the rituals of the pilgrimage to several stages of death, the resurrection and the hereafter. The first stage of ḥajj, the intention, Dhū al-Nūn equates with writing a testament because of one’s certainty about death, in which he seeks the obedience to and contentment of God. After this, one travels from dunyā to ākhira, a travel without return, on which the riding camel is trust in God (tawakkul) and the provision is wariness of God (taqwā). During his travel he must be as if he is being carried towards his grave. When he goes into the state of ritual consecration (iḥrām), it is as if he is dead and is resurrected from his grave, and is called to stand between the hands of his Lord. That, according to Dhū al-Nūn, is alluded to in the Qurʾānic saying “And proclaim the pilgrimage to the people; they will come to you on foot” (Q22:27). The talbiyya is the response to this call, the major ritual ablution (ghusl) of the iḥrām is like the washing of the deceased (ghusl al-mayyit) and the clothes of iḥrām are like the death shroud. Standing on the mount ʿArafa is like being raised from death, dust- covered, and the sojourn at al-Muzdalifah is like the permission (jawāz) on the Bridge (ṣirāṭ) towards the afterlife. Running between al-ṣafā and al-marwā is like the balance of good and bad deeds, leaning over from the one side to the other. The ritual of sacrifice (mansik) is like the heights (aʿrāf) between the Garden and the Fire. The Sacred Mosque (al-masjid al-ḥārām) is like the Garden: who enters it is safe. The Kaʿba is like the throne of God, and the circumambulation (ṭawāf) around it is like the ṭawāf of the angels around the throne.241

In the work of al-Sulamī this immanentist approach to eschatology seems to be unique to Dhū al-Nūn: al-Sulamī does not quote similar sayings from other authorities. It is not easy to classify this saying into one of the six mentioned attitudes. One could argue that it is an expression of the fifth attitude of conceiving of an immanent otherworld in the macrocosm. One could also argue that it comes close to the approach of the early

61 (2014): 559-612. An older attempt to place Dhū al-Nūn in his historical environment has been made by Josef van Ess, “Der Kreis des Dhū al-Nūn,” Die Welt des Orients 12 (1981): 99-106.

241 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, II, 20-21.

99 renunciants. It contains elements of the first and second attitude, not so much in an explicit form of fear of Hell or hope for Paradise (or perhaps anticipating both), but a strong awareness of the inevitability of death and of resurrection.242

3.3 Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896)

As mentioned in the introduction, Baṣra-based Sahl al-Tustarī is the only personality prior to al-Sulamī to whom an independent work of tafsīr is ascribed that is still known to us in its original form today.243 He thus deserves a little more attention here in the form of a small excursion into the tafsīr that is attributed to him, to see how the transmissions in this tafsīr relate to the commentary that al-Sulamī has included. It is hoped that by analyzing the reception and redaction of al-Sulamī of the sayings of Sahl, some doctrinal developments and personal preferences of al-Sulamī can be reconstructed.

3.3.1 Eschatology in the tafsīr attributed to Sahl

Globally we can state that both the third and the fourth attitude, that is, the ‘cold’ and the

‘hot’ rejection of Paradise and Hell, are present in the tafsīr of Sahl, and that the stress on the vision of and meeting with God is equally dominant as in the sayings by Jaʿfar. Beside these themes, Sahl introduces another theme: consuming the delights of Paradise during this-worldly life.

Sahl’s tafsīr shows the same prominence of the themes of nearness to and vision of

242 As Josef van Ess explains it in the context of al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243/857): “Das tawahhum führt ihn dazu, das Gericht zu fürchten und reuig umzukehren; darum wird er sich im Jenseits nicht mehr zu fürchten brauchen.” Van Ess, Gedankenwelt, 137-138.

243 For a detailed monograph on this tafsīr see Böwering, Mystical Vision. All English quotes in this dissertation are from the translation by Annabel Keeler and Ali Keeler, tr., Tafsīr al-Tustarī

(Louisville: Fons Vitae, 2011).

100 God as the focal point of the hereafter that we have observed in the sayings attributed to

Jaʿfar. Exemplary for this is the commentary on Q19:61, where the Gardens of Eden are explained as “the visual beholding (muʿāyana) of God, in the sense of nearness which He facilitated between Him and them.”244 This proximity to and vision of God is apparently so intense, that to be cut off from it for a moment after having to come to know Him is similar to the punishment of Hell:

Truly God, Exalted is He, has servants in Paradise who, if they were veiled from the encounter (liqāʾ) [with their Lord] for a blinking of the eye, would cry out for help against it, just as the inhabitants of the Hellfire plead for help against the Hellfire. This is because they have come to know Him (ʿarafūhu).245

Subsequently, Sahl mentions Moses as an example of someone constantly yearning for this visionary encounter. Being the Interlocutor of God (Kalīm Allāh), after having experienced the sweetness of hearing the unmediated voice of God, he wanted nothing else but to behold Him with the eye as well, and requested this. However, God refused, stating that nobody can see Him in this world without dying. Moses then said, so states Sahl: “O Lord!

Let me behold You and die, for that is preferable to me than not seeing You and remaining alive.”246

The commentary contains more sayings in a similar vein. The ultimate death of the heart is imagined as being cut off (qaṭīʿa) from God, while the ultimate life of the heart is considered to be the encounter (liqāʾ) with God.247 The blindness in the hereafter that is mentioned in Q17:72 as a consequence of (metaphorical) blindness in this world is explained

244 Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Tustarī (trans. Keeler and Keeler), 120.

245 Ibid.

246 Ibid., 121. The theme of the request of the vision of God by Moses, as mentioned in the Qurʾān in

Q7:143 will be further scrutinized in Chapter Five.

247 Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Tustarī (trans. Keeler and Keeler), 116.

101 as “being prevented from seeing the Bestower of blessings (al-Munʿim).”248 The true worshippers are declared to be those who worship God out of pure love, not because of the recompense of Paradise and Hell.249 For the one who enjoys Paradise with his appetitive self

(al-nafs al-ṭabīʿī), the eternal vision of God will be lost.250 Who is diverted from his Lord by the hereafter is said to have a despicable nature and base aspiration.251 It is the luminous spiritual self (nafs al-rūḥ al-nūrī) that is given the vision (ruʾya) in the heavenly kingdom

(malakūt).252 In the hereafter the believer is in an even greater need (iftiqār) of God than in this world, because of his constant yearning for the encounter.253 The fear and hope mentioned in Q32:16, which in conventional works of tafsīr is explained as fear of punishment and hope for reward, for Sahl comes to mean the fear of separation (hijrān) from God and the hope for meeting (liqāʾ) of Him.254 When God interrogates the truthful on the Day of Judgement and testifies that they speak the truth, His affirming their truthfulness is more dear to them than Paradise and its bliss.255 The abhorrence of God for their deeds is more difficult to bear for them than the Fire.256 Gratitude is said to lead to the vision of Paradise (ruʾyat al-janna).257 Paradise itself is the reward for one’s bodily acts, whatever the souls desire (Q43:71), while the visionary encounter with God, and delights the

248 Ibid., 114.

249 Ibid., 130, 149, 169.

250 Ibid., 181.

251 Ibid., 233.

252 Ibid., 171.

253 Ibid., 239.

254 Ibid., 156.

255 Ibid., 158.

256 Ibid., 176.

257 Ibid., 170. Ruʾyat al-janna most likely means the vision of God in Paradise here. The Arabic is ambiguous however, and might also mean the vision of Paradise itself.

102 eyes (Q43:71), is the reward for the realization of God’s oneness.258 The forgiveness of their

Lord mentioned in Q47:15 is interpreted as the lights of God that cover the believers during their vision of God in Paradise.259 They become able to bear this vision because God grants them stability (tamkīn) as a reward for the realization of God’s oneness. 260 In the commentary on Q75:22-23, which itself speaks of the vision of God, Sahl states that whoever is killed by his love for God, will be rewarded with the vision of Him.261

While it is true that verses that deal with the hereafter in its physical sense are largely neglected (rather than denied) in Sahl’s commentary, his tafsīr contains some remarkable quotes that do not so much extol the enjoyments of Paradise in the hereafter, but describe instances of experiencing the enjoyments of Paradise in this world.262 The two most illustrative examples have been briefly discussed in the introduction. One quote speaks of a man (Sahl) consuming a pomegranate from Paradise in this world as a proof that he is of the people of Paradise: only those foreordained to eat it in the hereafter are also

258 Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Tustarī (trans. Keeler and Keeler), 184-185, 258.

259 Ibid., 193.

260 Ibid., 185, 193.

261 It is only then that he, for one of two instances in the entire tafsīr, quotes one of the famous otherworld renouncing sayings of Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya (d. 185/801): “My Lord, I love this world only that I might remember You in it, and I love the Hereafter only because I may see You there. (…) My

Lord, do not bring upon me these two things for I will not be able to bear them: burning in Hell and separation from You.” Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Tustarī (trans. Keeler and Keeler), 258.

262 In the Tustarī-tradition there is also a story, not mentioned in the tafsīr, of Sahl crossing the boundary the other way, visiting Paradise and conversing with three hundred prophets assembled there. Gerhard Böwering, “From the Word of God to the Vision of God: Muḥammad’s Heavenly

Journey in Classical Ṣūfī Qurʾān Commentary,” in Le voyage initiatique en terre d’Islam: ascensions célestes et itineraires spirituels, ed. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi (Louvain-Paris: Peeters, 1996), 211.

103 capable of eating it in this world.263 Another example of this boundary crossing is found in the commentary on Q76:25, where Sahl claims to experience the drinking of a paradisiacal drink mentioned in the verse he recites during the congregational night prayer.264

Beside these cases of encountering, or tasting, Paradise in the phenomenal world, there are also some cases of internalization of the hereafter, i.e. Paradise and Hell metaphorically to be found within the inner constitution of the believer. Commenting on

Q73:9 for example, Sahl states:

There is a Paradise and a Hellfire in this life. Paradise is safety (ʿāfiya), and safety is that God takes care of your affairs, and Hellfire is tribulation (balwā). Tribulation is when He leaves you in charge of your self.265

The inner meaning of the gardens and springs mentioned in Q51:15 is said to be that the

God-conscious inhabit gardens of God’s contentment (riḍā) in this world and swim in springs of intimate companionship (uns). The mercy mentioned in Q17:57 is said to be

Paradise in its outer meaning, while it is the reality of experiential knowledge (ḥaqīqat al- maʿrifa) in its inner meaning. The people of the Heights mentioned in Q7:46 are equated with the people of experiential knowledge. As the people of Heights can see into Paradise and Hell, the people of experiential knowledge can see into “the secrets of His servants and their states in this world.”266

263 Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Tustarī (trans. Keeler and Keeler), 15.

264 Ibid., 260.

265 Ibid., 253.

266 Ibid., 73, 113, 207.

104 3.3.2 Quotes from Sahl in Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr A significant part of the sayings mentioned in the tafsīr attributed to Sahl have not found their way to the two tafsīr-works of al-Sulamī. Only one saying that explicitly deals with pure love for God instead of reward and punishment as the only sincere motive for worship is mentioned as in the tafsīr attributed to Sahl.267 Also the saying that being hated by God is more difficult for the unbeliever than the punishment of the Fire has been selected by al-

Sulamī.268

Al-Sulamī mentions one saying by Sahl that explicitly deals with the physical pleasures of Paradise, stating in the commentary on Q55:56 that “whoever restrains his glance in this world from the forbidden, and obscure matters, and from enjoyments and their beauty, God gives him in the otherworld women restraining their glances which He has promised.”269 This saying is mentioned in the tafsīr of Sahl as well.270 The pomegranate- story is not mentioned by al-Sulamī at all. Probably the idea of physical consumption of paradisiacal objects in this world had become too controversial by his time, to the extent that he decided to omit it from his redaction. The discussion on this issue must have taken place somewhere in the era between these two authors, and must have been decided in favor of those arguing against the idea. For example Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/936), who lived in the era between Sahl and al-Sulamī, speaks about the idea of consuming fruits of Paradise in this world in a negative manner in his Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn. 271 However, the

267 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, II, 17.

268 Ibid., II, 207.

269 Ibid., II, 296.

270 Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Tustarī (trans. Keeler and Keeler), 217.

271 Abū al-Ḥasan Ismāʿīl al-Ashʿarī, Kitāb maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn wa-ikhtilāf al-muṣallīn, ed. Helmut Ritter

(Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1963), 289, 438-39. The students of ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd (d. ca.

132/750) also claimed to enter Paradise every night during this-worldly life and eat from its fruits.

This is disapprovingly mentioned by al-Sarrāj in his Kitāb al-lumaʿ as a deception by devils. Abū Naṣr

105 story of drinking the pure drink of Paradise during prayer is mentioned by al-Sulamī. This probably was not considered equally controversial since it is clear in the anecdote that the drinking is imaginary and not physical.

3.4 Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz (d. 286/899)

Originally from Baghdad, Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz is said to have travelled extensively to Baṣra,

Qayrawān, Mecca and Medina, Jerusalem and Egypt, where he studied with the Sufi masters of his age. His teachings in general stressed, like those of his contemporary al-Junayd, that interior (bāṭin) ideas must not contradict exterior (ẓāhir) doctrine or law. For example, he had a correspondence with a group of Sufis in Damascus, who held the view that they could see God with their hearts in this world as the inhabitants of Paradise will see God with their eyes. He considered this a heretical view.272

The few sayings transmitted by al-Sulamī attributed to him do not clearly testify to this concern. He is quoted to have stated that “he in whose heart experiential knowledge

(maʿrifa) resides, does not perceive (lā yubṣiru) anything beside God in the two abodes.”273

Another saying also indicates a stress on the theme of experiential knowledge, stating that the people of experiential knowledge in this world are like the people of the Garden in the

ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAlī al-Sarrāj al-Ṭūṣī, The Kitāb al-Lumaʿ fī’l-Taṣawwuf, ed. Reynold A. Nicholson (Leiden:

Brill, 1914), 429. Cf. Lange, Paradise and Hell, ch. 7. For more discussions on similar issues of boundary crossing see Chapter Four.

272 EI2, s.v. al-Kharrāz, IV, 1083-1084 (W. Madelung). Unfortunately this treatise, Kitāb ruʾyat al-qulūb, is lost. See Chapter Four, footnote 535.

273 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 388. This does not necessarily have to be in conflict with the view mentioned before. Lā yubṣiru might well have the connotation of ‘does not pay attention to,’ and have nothing to do with the actual vision of God.

106 otherworld.274 That the importance of otherworldly proximity to and vision of God does not lead to a renunciation of otherworldly joy but rather is highest in the hierarchy of joys, becomes clear in his saying that he who repents “has to wait a long time for death while fearing temptation in this world, has to wait a long time for the reward in the grave while hoping for abundant givings in the otherworld, and he has to wait a long time for the resurrection while hoping for eternal dwelling in the proximity of the Merciful and looking at Him.”275

3.5 Al-Junayd al-Baghdādī (d. 298/910)

Al-Junayd, together with al-Muḥāsibī considered one of the most important early proponents of a more sober form of Sufism beside the emerging ‘ecstatic’ trend, also showed a more modest concern for the vision of God in the otherworld. He claimed that who is blind for the witnessing of the grace of God in this world, will not witness the essence (dhāt) of God in the otherworld, and that “who in this [abode] is blind to the witnessing of His doing good, is blind in the otherworld to the vision of Him and astray from His nearness.”276 In another saying al-Junayd quotes al-Sarī (d. 243/857), who related that he had seen God in his sleep, who said the following to him:

O Sarī, I created humankind, and I created this world (al-dunyā), and with this world went away nine tenth of humankind, and a tenth stayed with Me. Then I created the Garden, and with the Garden nine tenth of what remained went away, and from it a tenth stayed with Me. Then tribulation (al-balāʾ) ruled over them, and from tribulation nine tenth fled of what remained, and a tenth of a tenth remained. So I said: ‘What do you want if it is not this world that you wanted, and not the Garden that you sought, and you did not flee from tribulation’, and they answered me. They

274 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, II, 170.

275 Ibid., II, 202.

276 Ibid., I, 393.

107 said: ‘You know what we want.’ He said: ‘I will send tribulations down on you which the mountains cannot bear.’ They said: ‘Are you not the one who does this to us? So we are content.’277

This narration is first of all important because it shows that for these early Sufis, even the more sober-minded, the claim of seeing God in a dream, and by this mode receiving wisdom from God, was apparently not a strange thing. Both al-Junayd and al-Sulamī were not shocked by such a claim to the point of censoring it from their corpus or problematizing it in an added comment of their own.278 Secondly, it is important for the notion that both this world and the Garden are considered to keep humankind away from what really matters, expressed in the rhetorical answer “You know what we want.” What this is that they want, al-Sarī does not make explicit, but it is quite obvious that God is implied. It is only a very small group who realizes this, and attains this highest level.

277 Ibid., I, 322.

278 The claim to see God in a dream can be found in canonical ḥadīth literature and is not per se restricted to Sufism. See Pierre Lory, “La vision de dieu dans l’onirocritique musulmane médiévale,” in Reason and Inspiration in Islam: theology, philosophy and mysticism in Muslim thought: essays in honour of

Hermann Landolt, ed. Todd Lawson (London: Tauris, 2005), 353-63. However, these sometimes seemingly anthropomorphic traditions were not always considered unproblematic, and were discussed and debated in special treatises. Some of this material on seeing God in the form of a beardless young man later made it into literature on problematic narrations, e.g. al-Suyūṭī’s Al-Laʾālī al-maṣnūʿa fī’l-aḥādīth al-mawḍūʿa, and ʿAlī al-Qārī’s Al-Asrār al-marfūʿa, perhaps because of its too explicit anthropomorphism. See Helmut Ritter, “Philologica II,” Der Islam 17 no. 1 (1928): 256-57;

Richard Gramlich, Der eine Gott: Grundzüge der Mystik der islamischen Monotheismus (Wiesbaden:

Harrassowitz Verlag, 1998), 136-37. We will come back to this more profoundly in Chapter Four.

108 3.6 Ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Ādamī (d. 309/922)

One of the authorities that al-Sulam I quotes most often, both on eschatological verses and in general, is the Baghdād-based Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad Ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Ādamī (d. 309/922). He was a comrade of al-Junayd and al-Ḥallāj (d. 309/922), whom he supported until his death by execution, and whose fate he would therefore more or less share, dying from torture in captivity for refusing to testify against him.279 Ibn ʿAṭāʾ was an adherent of the Ḥanbalī school. In Sufism he was instructed by al-Junayd’s friend Ibrāhīm al-Māristānī. Not much is known about his life. He is said to have had a life full of tribulations, losing many of his children. Several hagiographies mention his intimate relationship with and deep understanding of the Qur’an, the recitation of which is said to have consumed most of his daily time, completing the recitation of its entirety once everyday, and three times a day during the month of Ramaḍān.

Ibn ʿAṭāʾ is said to have had a difference of opinion with al-Junayd on the definition of ecstasy (wajd). According to al-Junayd the stress should be on rejoicing, while Ibn ʿAṭāʾ preferred an ecstasy of grief. He argued that rejoicing only befitted man when returned to the original abode of Adam, Paradise. Therefore in this world grief and weeping should be dominant.280 This gives the impression of a renunciant attitude towards this-worldly life and a hope-driven orientation towards Paradise. However, most of his sayings fall within both the scope of the third and the fourth attitude, altogether making his response ‘tepid’ rather than ‘hot’ or ‘cold’. Commenting on Q3:131 for example, he ‘coldly’ states that God in this verse commanded the normal people (ʿawāmm) to be conscious of the Fire, to fear it and to leave sins for the sake of it, while in another verse “He commanded the elect (khawāṣṣ) to be conscious of Him and to look at none other than Him.”281 The reward for the God-

279 Carl Ernst, Words of Ecstacy in Sufism (Albany: SUNY Press, 1985), 105-06.

280 Richard Gramlich, Abu l-ʿAbbās B. ʿAṭāʾ: Sufi und Koranausleger (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1995), 1-5.

281 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 119.

109 conscious he held to be the vision of God.282 The verse We have wronged ourselves (Q7:23) comes to mean that one wrongs himself “by being occupied with the Garden and desiring it, instead of God.”283 The obligation that God gave to Adam (Q20:115), states Ibn ʿAṭāʾ, was that he should not look at anything else than Him. Adam, in his lack of firmness mentioned in the same verse, forgot this obligation though, and looked to the Gardens instead, thus being disobedient.284 Also, “Adam’s departure from the Garden, his crying much, his need

(iftiqār), and the emergence of the prophets from his loins, were better for him than the

Garden and the enjoyment and luxury in it.”285 That the otherworldly vision of God was considered the most important by Ibn ʿAṭāʾ also appears from several other sayings: “The complete blessing in this World is experiential knowledge, and in the otherworld the vision.”286 When the believers of Q18:31 are resting on the benches, they are constantly looking at their King.287

3.7 Quotes from other authorities

Abū Bakr al-Wāsiṭī (d. 320/923) also mainly showed interest in the vision of God. In line with the conventional explanation he is quoted on Q10:26 to have said that al-ziyāda is the glance

(naẓar) at God. The highest degree in the hereafter he holds to be the ‘carpet of nearness’

(bisāṭ al-qurb), and witnessing (mushāhada) God is even more elevated and majestic. The degree one reaches is determined by the degree of one’s longing (shawq).288

282 Ibid., II, 297.

283 Ibid., I, 224.

284 Ibid., I, 449.

285 Ibid., I, 225.

286 Ibid., I, 371.

287 Ibid., I, 410.

288 Ibid., I, 289, 385.

110 To al-Shiblī (d. 334/945) it is only attributed that he commented upon Q3:152, among you are who want this world and among you are who want the otherworld, saying: “Among you are who want this world for obedience, and among you are who want the otherworld for the

Garden. But where is the desirer (murīd) of God the Exalted?” Being a desirer of God is then connected to the moral quality of God-centered motivation in all one’s acts: “The desirer of

God the Exalted is he who when he speaks, speaks for God, and when he remains silent, it is for none other than God the Exalted.” 289 These quotes selected by al-Sulamī are significantly more ‘cold’ than al-Shiblī’s sayings elsewhere, that represent a ‘hot’ contempt of the otherworld. For example, he compares Hell to sugar compared to being separated from God, and claims that he can extinguish the fire of Hell by spitting on it.290 That al-

Sulamī did not include these sayings in his selection, may mean that al-Sulamī did not look favorable to these sayings and preferred a more moderate understanding of Sufism in his selection.

Al-Sulamī relates several sayings from his teacher Abū al-Qāsim al-Naṣrābādhī, himself a student of al-Shiblī. Commenting on a verse that deals with almsgiving (Q3:92 - you will not reach piety until you give from what is dear to you) he states that the Garden is what should be given away, and that ‘arrival’ at God (wuṣūl) can only be reached by undoing oneself of the two abodes and what is in them.291 Commenting on part of Q16:21, Dead, not alive, and they do not know, he is quoted to have said: “The people of the Garden are dead and do not know, because of their being distracted by other than the Real (al-Ḥaqq), and the people of presence (ḥaḍra) are alive because they are in a state of witnessing the Living

(mushāhadat al-Ḥayy).”292

289 Ibid., I, 123.

290 Cf. Lange, Paradise and Hell, ch. 7.

291 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 107. Similar quotes are attributed to al-Wāsiṭī and Ibn ʿAṭāʾ.

292 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 364.

111 There are many passages that allude to the idea of Paradise and Hell being a veil

(ḥijāb) from God. Commenting on Q2:82, and those who believe and do good works, they are the companions of the Garden, forever dwelling therein, he quotes an unnamed ʿIrāqī’ as having stated that “works only make one reach something created like itself, and the biggest veil of the knowers (ʿārifīn) is the Garden, and distracting oneself by it from God is the biggest calamity (al-muṣība al-ʿuẓmā), because the Garden emanated from ‘Be’ (kun).” 293 The hereafter is only created, and thus ‘only’ a reward for one’s works, which are created as well. The focus should only be on the true, intrinsic reward, which is the Creator Himself.

3.8 Conclusions

We may conclude that the sayings of the early renunciants, many of whom stressed the fear of Hell, have not made it into the redaction of al-Sulamī. The hope for the physical rewards of Paradise is also not present very strongly. Most dominant already in the time of al-

Sulamī, and probably even before that, is a God-centered conception of the hereafter, expressed in the themes of the meeting with and vision of God. The fourth, ‘hot’ attitude seems to have especially been strong with those personalities who are generally identified with ‘ecstatic’ Sufism, although al-Sulamī seems to suppress some of the more radical of their statements, as he’s also reluctant to convey trends of immanentist eschatology. The more sober-minded personalities did not completely lose reward and punishment out of sight.

4 Eschatological commentary in al-Qushayrī’s Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt

Ishārī explanations do not form the bulk of al-Qushayrī’s commentary on issues of Paradise and Hell. Generally when he comments on eschatological verses in his commentary he

293 Ibid., I, 65.

112 remains close to conventional understandings of the verses, and elaborates on them in his distinctive literary style. An example is his commentary on Q27:87, on the Day the horn will be blown, about which he states:

It is related that the day on which the trumpet is blown, is the day of the passing away of the spirits, and their parting from the bodies. There are spirits that ascend to ʿIlliyyīn, and there are spirits that go to Sijjīn. Those are set in birds which move in the Garden, [and] take their refuge in the night to lanterns attached to the underside of the [Divine] Throne, its attribute being praise (tasbīḥ), refreshment (rawḥ) and comfort (rāḥa), and for some of them the witnessing (shuhūd) and the vision (ruʾya), according to their merit that they were upon in their this-worldly existence. And as for the spirits of the unbelievers, they are in the Fire, being punished according to their crimes.294

These eschatological ideas of the separation of body and spirit, and a temporary spiritual punishment or reward between death and the ultimate eternal bodily recompense are well established in the Jamāʿī-Sunni idea of the limbo, al-barzakh.295 Also on other issues al-

Qushayrī follows these conventional ideas conscientiously. Believers will not abide in the

Fire forever and will ultimately go to Paradise, while unbelievers will remain in an eternal punishment.296 Those who choose this world over the otherworld, “God does not speak to them, and does not look at them on the day of resurrection and does not purify them. Then, with that He lets them abide in the eternal punishment.” 297 However, this eternal punishment will be a bit lighter for sincere people among the unbelievers.298

294 Qushayrī, Laṭā’if, III, 51.

295 For a thorough study on the ideas on al-barzakh in the Islamic tradition see Ragnar Eklund, Life between Death and Resurrection according to Islam (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1941).

296 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, I, 246, 251.

297 Ibid., I, 252.

298 Ibid., I, 251.

113 Remarkably, al-Qushayrī neglects all Sufi quotes that we discussed earlier from the commentary of al-Sulamī on the centrality of the vision of God or nearness to Him in the hereafter. Also the trend of contemptus ultramundi remains unmentioned in his selection of quotes from al-Sulamī. Does this mean he did not have any interest in these topics? Not quite. For example on Q43:71 he comments:

The people of experiential knowledge (ahl al-maʿrifa) and the lovers (muḥibbūn), they have the gaze at God (naẓar) that delights their eyes according to the length that they have measured of excess of longing with their hearts, and [according to] the burning they have undergone because of the heaviness of their ardent desire (ghalīl).299

This quote is in its content not much different from Jaʿfar’s statement on the same verse before him. We can thus not conclude that he did not include these quotes because he did not agree with their approach to mysticism or otherwise had topical disagreement on the topic of the vision of God.

Also at other places he shows interest in the theme of vision. When speaking of the good in this world and the good in the otherworld as mentioned in Q2:201, he states that the good in this world “is the witnessing with the inmost selves (shuhūd bi’l-asrār), and the good in the hereafter is the vision with eye-sight (ruʾyat al-abṣār).”300 The topic of nearness appears now and then as well, for example when al-Qushayrī states that “death is a joy for the believer, and the message of nearness to Him is good news for him, because it is a cause for being connected to God. Whoever loves to meet God, God loves to meet him.”301 The

“heavy punishment” (ʿadhāb shadīd) so often mentioned in the Qur’an, for al-Qushayrī alludes to the humiliation of the lowering of the veil between God and man (dhull al-

299 Ibid., III, 374.

300 Ibid., I, 168-69.

301 Ibid., I, 349.

114 ḥijāb).302 There is no greater punishment than to be returned to creation after having reached God, and to be veiled from God again.303

Also a mild form of disregard of otherworldly recompense appears every now and then. The best reward in the hereafter, states al-Qushayrī, is to enter the Garden being freed from it, and not entering it imprisoned by it. He then quotes an anonymous source not mentioned by al-Sulamī, that “the reward of this world and the otherworld is absence [of the heart] from the two abodes by the vision (ruʾya) of the Creator of them.”304 True repentance is only made for the sake of God, not out of fear for the Fire or desire for the

Garden.305

Al-Qushayrī also uses Qurʾānic verses on wariness of God (taqwā) to construct a hierarchy of ways to instill fear in different classes of believers, a hierarchy that is typical for his combination of conventional and ishārī hermeneutics. In the general people

(ʿawāmm), so states al-Qushayrī, God instills fear through His acts (afʿāl), by reminding them to protect themselves from (ittaqū) the Day of Judgment and the Fire. The elect (khawāṣṣ) then, are subject to fear through His attributes (ṣifāt), because they realize that God constantly sees and witnesses them as mentioned in Q9:105 and Q10:61. In the elect of the elect (khawāṣṣ al-khawāṣṣ) God instills fear only through Himself, as reflected in the saying in

Q3:28, God warns you of Himself.306 The higher one’s level on the Sufi path, the more God- centered one’s motivation becomes, and the less important otherworldly recompense becomes for one’s fear and wariness of God.

302 Ibid., I, 219.

303 Ibid., I, 303.

304 Ibid., I, 283-84.

305 Ibid., III, 352.

306 Ibid., I, 88-9.

115 Concluding, an important note should be made concerning what constitutes a ‘Sufi’ approach to the Qur’ānic text, an issue we raised earlier in the introduction and Chapter

One. Since al-Qushayrī does not emphasize ishārī explanations of eschatological verses as much as other authors do and puts more stress on the conventional meanings, it would be tempting to say that his approach to eschatology is less motivated by ‘Sufi’ concerns.

However, I think this is wrong to state. It would be more correct to state that although he does not opt for an ishārī approach in many cases, his intention was still shaped by Sufi concerns. Since his goal with Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt was to guide and train his pupils on the Sufi path, he apparently saw a conventional understanding of eschatology as part of a decent

Sufi training. Whether the work is ‘Sufi’ or not then, is not so much determined by the extent of ishārī material quoted, but depends more on the reception and usage of the text.

For a text to be a ‘Sufi’ text, what is defining is that the Sufis somehow consider it important in their path and claim it as their own. What makes the approach of al-Qushayri to eschatology ‘Sufi’, then, is the fact that it was valued in a context of instruction of and creating like-mindedness among his group of Sufi pupils, who considered these conventional readings of eschatological verses just as much part of their training as the ishārī readings. To cultivate the character traits to become an exemplary Sufi, one needed these conventional understandings as well.307

307 Carl W. Ernst has made a similar point on Sufi poetry. Ernst contends that whether a poem is

‘Sufi’ or not depends more on whether it is being read in a Sufi context than whether it is written by a Sufi and has explicitly intended Sufi content. The intent of the reader matters more than the intent of the author. Carl W. Ernst, “What is Early Arabic Sufi Poetry? Prologomenon to a translation of the Poetry of al-Hallaj” (unpublished essay, 2014). A lot of the love poetry cited in the Laṭāʾif al- ishārāt, for example, was originally composed in a non-religious context referring to secular love. Al-

Qushayrī subsequently quotes it in an explicitly religious context, and plays with the love content in relationship of the believer to God. Thus he transforms secular love poetry to Sufi poetry by his readership of it rather than by its authorial intent. See Sands, “Subtleties”, 9-10. For a full account of

116

5 Hierarchies in the hereafter: Maybudī

With its ten volumes, the Qurʾān commentary of Maybudī is the most voluminous of the works under study. Where we have studied the other works from cover to cover to reconstruct their eschatological conceptions, we can only offer a selective reading here of the vast material available in Maybudī’s tafsīr.308

Maybudī’s commentary shows a certain amount of ambiguity on issues pertaining to the hereafter: several seemingly conflicting attitudes coexist. On the one hand he does not completely do away with the attitude of the early renunciants towards the hereafter. He holds both fear of Hell and hope for Paradise to be required. However, he does show himself critical of an isolated cultivation of these attitudes. They should always come in pairs and should be in balance. In his commentary on Q52:13, about the punishment of Hell, and

Q52:17-18, about the reward of Paradise, he states that these verses demand both fear and hope. God mentions the reward of Paradise directly after the punishment of Hell as a signal to the believer that the two should be in balance. One should neither despair of God’s mercy, nor feel secure from His punishment. To exemplify his point, he makes a similitude with a lamp. He compares fear to fire, hope to oil, belief to a wick, and the heart to a lamp holder. For a lamp to burn, it needs both fire and oil. Likewise, a religious person needs both fear and hope.309

the poetry cited by al-Qushayrī see Aḥmad Amīn Muṣṭafā, Takhrīj abyāt Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt (Cairo:

Maṭbaʿa al-saʿāda, 1986).

308 For my selection of relevant passages I am greatly indebted to Annabel Keeler’s Sufi Hermeneutics and to Chittick’s Divine Love, that have proven very helpful to navigate this voluminous Qurʾān commentary.

309 Maybudī, Kashf, IX, 346-47.

117 On the other hand, the attitude of disregard for the hereafter is present in Maybudī’s commentary as well. He for example says that someone who has reached intimacy with

God, will not be satisfied by the bliss of Paradise.310 He also quotes Abū ʿAlī Rūdbārī (d.

322/934), a Persian disciple of al-Junayd, who preferred one ‘breath’ of God to all the material delights of Paradise.311 On Q36:55, The companions of the Garden are joyfully in occupation today, he quotes his teacher ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī (only referred to as pīr-i ṭarīqat) that this occupation is that of the general believers of whom Muhammad has said: “The majority of the people of the Garden are the simpletons.”312 The elect of the believers who have experienced proximity and the presence of witnessing (ḥaḍrat-i mushāhada) cannot be interested in the bliss of Paradise at all. What Maybudī seems to mean by this is that the general believers are simpletons because they do not realize that the true value of Paradise does not lie in its material enjoyments that they occupy themselves with, but in nearness to and vision of God. He further stresses this by describing how a group of people standing before God on the day of resurrection will not want to leave to Paradise. When they are commanded to go, they will answer that they already have what they want: they are already standing before God.313

On several instances Maybudī criticizes people who are only motivated by reward or punishment. He takes specific issue with religious scholars who confine themselves to the outward aspects of religion. He considers them to be on the lowest level of tawḥīd. All they care about is safety in this world and well being in the hereafter. He quotes al-Junayd to this

310 Ibid., VIII, 441.

311 Maybudī, Kashf, I, 469. The same quote later reappears attributed to Anṣārī. Maybudī, Kashf, VIII,

441.

312 “Akthar ahl al-janna al-bulh.” Abū Bakr Aḥmad al-Bayhaqī, Shuʿab al-īmān, ed. ʿAbd al-ʿAlī ʿAbd al-

Ḥamīd Ḥāmid (Riyadh: Maktabat al-rushd li’l-nashr wa’l-tawzīʿ, 2003), II, 391.

313 Maybudī, Kashf, VIII, 250.

118 effect: “These are the filling of the Garden, which has companions other than these. The stuffing of the Garden are its prisoners, and the companions of the Garden are its commanders.”314 In his commentary on Q73:8 he pleads for a complete focus on God at the expense of Paradise and Hell. This is embodied in the state of devotion (tabattul).315 In this state only God enters the mind, pushing Paradise and Hell to the background:

Tabattul is one of the stations of [spiritual] wayfarers; those who in their states (munāzilāt) and unveilings have reached a point where Paradise with all its trees and rivers does not enter the beauty of their imagination, while hellfire with all its shackles and chains trembles in fear at the burning in their breasts.316

Maybudī more often uses his commentary on eschatological verses to establish and confirm a hierarchy in religious understandings and levels of inner life, typical of Sufism.317

He distinguishes three degrees within Paradise, related to three different stages of God- wariness (taqwā). The first stage is the Garden of Refuge (jannat al-maʾwā), reserved for those who avoid forbidden things and the desires of the lower self.318 The highest degree is the

Garden of Eden (jannat ʿadn), coupled with the greatest contentment (riḍwān-i akbar), reserved for the most wary of God.319 This highest level consists of considering anything

314 Maybudī, Kashf, VI, 574-75; Chittick, Divine Love, 220.

315 Tabattul is a term hardly ever found in the handbooks of Sufism. It is derived from Q73:8, wa- tabattal ilayhi tabtīlan (and devote yourself to him with devotion). Cf. Nwyia, Exégèse coranique, 54.

316 Maybudī, Kashf, X, 274. Translation from Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 163-64.

317 For the socio-political implications of this Sufi tendency to establish spiritual hierarchies see

Anjum, “Mystical Authority,” 71-81.

318 He derives this relationship from Q79:40-41, Who fears the standing before his Lord and forbids the lower self from caprice, surely the Garden is the refuge.

319 Again, he derives this relationship from a Qurʾānic passage. Q9:72 reads and good dwellings in the

Garden of Eden; and contentment from God is greater.

119 created as one’s enemy, thus being completely focused on God and passionate love for reality (ʿishq-i ḥaqīqat) in one’s heart.320 Maybudī also expresses his belief that in the hereafter everybody is rewarded according to one’s goals and aspirations. Those who abide the law are rewarded with the Garden of Refuge, those with renunciant aspirations with the abode of eternity (dār al-khuld). The highest aspiration is of those who do not have any otherworldly hopes and desires and show disregard for the rewards of Paradise. Maybudī describes how this group is offered all types of material reward by the maidens and boy- servants of Paradise, but refuse everything. They only want to give their hearts to God.321

Everyone ultimately receives what he hopes for. The highest hope one can have is the vision of God:

From inside the court of Majesty comes the call of generosity with the attribute of mercy: “O Muhammad! The work of your community falls within three kinds: either they are believers, or they are knowers, or they are disobedient. If they are believers hoping for paradise, here then is Our paradise. If they are the disobedient hoping for Our mercy, here then is Our mercy and forgiveness. If they are the knowers hoping for vision, here then is Our vision.”322

Elsewhere Maybudī further elaborates this idea of separate stages of reward corresponding with varying attitudes towards both the here and the hereafter. Those who aspire only to this world will gain nothing in the hereafter, except by God’s mercy. Those whose aspiration aims at the hereafter are too attached to the otherworldly reward to experience intimate conversation with God and His unveiling. The highest aspiration is of one whose “heart is captive to love and his spirit drowned in face-to-face vision (ʿiyān). He

320 Maybudī, Kashf, II, 42-3; Chittick, Divine Love, 174.

321 Maybudī, Kashf, II, 42-3.

322 Maybudī, Kashf, III, 311; Chittick, Divine Love, 96.

120 has no news of this world and no mark of the otherworld.”323 The knower (ʿārif) takes the highest position in Maybudī’s hierarchy of reward, above the normal worshipper (ʿābid) and the renunciant (zāhid). The normal worshipper is like a mercenary (muzdūr) to him, only worshiping for the sake of the hereafter. The knower, however, disregards the hereafter and is only aiming for the vision of God.324 In the hereafter God will oblige the renunciant to enjoy Paradise as a reward for his disregard of worldly matters. The knower, who did not outright despise this-worldly life but was simply inattentive to it as a result of his occupation with his love for God, will end up at the highest station, in an assembly of truth, in the presence of a sovereign (Q54:55).325

Maybudī is the first to explicitly interpret the sensory experiences of Paradise from a Sufi perspective. In a lengthy commentary on Q36:55, The companions of the Garden are joyfully in occupation today, he gives a description of the role of the senses of taste, audition and vision in Paradise. He describes how the faithful will engage in the Sufi practice of listening (samāʿ) in Paradise. The angel Isrāfīl will read the Qurʾān to them, and David will recite from the Psalms.326 This auditory spectacle arouses the desire in the heart of the believer to taste the pure wine of Paradise (Q76:21), which is an allusion to the state of communion (waṣl) with God,327 and in the spirit and the eye to hear and see God directly.

God then ultimately lifts the veil and shows Himself. He will provide His servants with cups

323 Maybudī, Kashf, VIII, 168-69; Chittick, Divine Love, 178-79.

324 Maybudī, Kashf, VII, 152; Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 167-68.

325 Maybudī, Kashf, V, 167; Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 168.

326 Although not quoted explicitly by Maybudī, the tradition of samāʿ in Paradise and David reciting from the Psalms goes back to Dhū al-Nūn al-Miṣrī. Cf. Massignon, Essay, 144.

327 This pure wine is elsewhere described as ‘the wine of communion [with God]’ (sharāb-i waṣl).

Maybudī, Kashf, VII, 377. In my translation of waṣl as ‘communion’ instead of the more common

‘union’ I follow the opinion of Barbara von Schlegell, who warns for too excessive use of the term

‘union’ as translations for Sufi terminology. Von Schlegell, “Translating Sufism,” 583-84.

121 of wine and will recite from the Qurʾān to them. This then, states Maybudī, is the true samāʿ.

This listening does not take place through the body or the heart, but through the spirit

(jān). This is the only organ that is capable of becoming truly solitary with God.328

The vision of God is the most important sensual experience in the hereafter according to Maybudī. He describes it as the splendor of the spirit (bahāʾ-i jān), as what makes the Garden good and makes the poor man happy.329 Longing for this vision should lead to a disregard for this-worldly matters: it is God’s rightful due that only He be looked at with the eye of love.330 This vision in the hereafter takes place by three different eyes.

Firstly, there is the vision by the eye of the head, which sees the ‘light of bounty’ and is for pleasure. The second vision is by the eye of the heart, which is for experiential knowledge

(maʿrifa) and sees the ‘light of proximity’. Thirdly, one sees God with the eye of the spirit through the ‘light of finding (wujūd)’. This is for witnessing (mushāhada).331

Concluding, we can state that Maybudī deploys all the attitudes and grander themes present in al-Sulamī’s Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr. However, to bring forward these themes he hardly uses the material collected by al-Sulamī. He has found his own language to express these ideas, and sees no need to stand on the shoulders of his predecessors to convey these.

6 Paradise as ṣadaqa and shirk: al-Daylamī’s Taṣdīq al-maʿārif

In the thought of al-Daylamī the fourth, ‘hot’ attitude has clearly won over the third, ‘cold’ attitude, which was dominant in al-Qushayrī and were still somewhat in balance in the works of al-Sulamī and Maybudī. In his tafsīr we see a further continuation, or even

328 Maybudī, Kashf, VIII, 249-50.

329 Ibid., I, 27; VII, 377.

330 Ibid., I, 469.

331 Ibid., VII, 377-78.

122 radicalization, of the theme of belittling the importance of reward and punishment as a motivation for one’s belief and actions, focusing one’s otherworldly aspirations fully on

God. One should only call people to God, not to Paradise or this world.332 He considers both this world and the otherworld a tribulation (ibtilāʾ) by God.333 One’s supplications should only be for the face of God, not for this world or the otherworld.334 In his renunciation of the hereafter, al-Daylamī makes a similar distinction in levels of inner life as Maybudī.

Through the Qurʾān’s summoning the people to take heed (ittaqū), he establishes a hierarchy in orientations on the hereafter. To take heed is sometimes meant in the sense of fearing

God, and sometimes in the sense of fearing the Fire or the Resurrection. The knower (ʿārif) is supposed to only fear God, while the ordinary people (ʿawāmm) are called to fear the Fire and the Day of Resurrection.335 Al-Daylamī therefore forbids his intended audience, whom he apparently wishes to see on the level of the knowers, to worship God out of hope for

Paradise or fear of Hell. The refuge to God should not be motivated by the thought of punishment, but of God alone, and the escape to God should be from God alone.336 Who directs himself towards this world turns away from the otherworld. Who directs himself towards the otherworld turns away from God. To direct oneself towards God alone one has to turn away from this world and the otherworld altogether.337 The two sandals that Moses is summoned to leave behind for his auditory meeting with God in Q20:12, are this world

332 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 78a (Q12:108).

333 Ibid., folio 38b (Q5:41).

334 Ibid., folio 88a (Q18:28).

335 Ibid., folio 28ab (Q4:1).

336 Ibid., folio 85b-86a (Q17:23). To support this idea he quotes a ḥadīth which is more frequently quoted by Sufi authors, which states: “O God, I take my refuge in You from You, and I escape from

You towards You.”

337 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 144b (Q76:14).

123 and the otherworld and what is in them.338 He holds that the Garden is better than this world, and that the contentment (riḍwān) of God is better than the Garden and all that is in it. This is because riḍwān is an attribute of God, and as such is an instrument to reach the greatest proximity by witnessing (mushāhada) and eye-witnessing (muʿāyana) of God.339

In his commentary on several verses that deal with the giving of alms, he states that the true meaning of these verses is that to attain God, one should give away not only from his dunyā, but from his ākhira as well. Commenting on Q2:267, Give away from the good things that you have earned, he states that God can only be attained by giving away the best of what one has earned. Paradise is the best one has rightfully attained by one’s pious acts. One can give it away by removing the desire for it from one’s heart (qalb) and inmost self (sirr), so that one does not love it and does not want it, and so that one comes to see Paradise as enchainment and a prison. To support this idea al-Daylamī quotes Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī, who is said to have stated: “If God were to punish me on the Day of Resurrection, He would do it by distracting me by means of the Garden and its bliss.”340 Al-Daylamī states this is the true meaning of the alleged saying of Muhammad that this world and the otherworld are

338 Ibid., folio 93a (Q20:12). This example was more widespread in Sufi writings. It can for example also be found in al-Ghazālī’s Mishkāt al-anwār. W.H.T. Gairdner, trans., Al-Ghazzālī’s Mishkāt al-anwār

(“The Niche for Lights”): A Translation with Introduction (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1924), 75.

339 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 20a (Q3:14-15). In the same passage al-Daylamī holds yet another opinion about the meaning of al-riḍwān: “Know that in the world of omnipotence (ʿālam al- jabarūt) there is a tree whose length, number of branches and its permeation to the sides only God the Exalted knows. It is pure, sanctified, and its lowest foundation is in the paradisiacal gardens of al-Quds (farādīs al-quds). And it is clear as cold water or as crystal. Its color is green-like. That tree is called al-riḍwān. Who attains it, has attained the biggest contentment (al-riḍwān al-akbar), God willing.”

340 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 17b (Q2:269).

124 forbidden for the people of God (ahl Allāh).341 He then continues to state that it is clear that this world is not intended in the verse, since it is clear from many other Qurʾānic verses and sayings of the Prophet that this world does not belong to the good things.342 The verse You will not reach piety until you give away from what is beloved to you (Q3:92) is explained similarly.

One is supposed to give away dunyā and ākhira, and one’s self (nafs) and spirit (rūḥ).343

Al-Daylamī even goes so far in this dhamm al-ākhira that he states that fear of the Fire and hope for the Garden can lead to a form of idolatry (shirk). These emotions are part of one’s desires, and the Qurʾān speaks negatively about taking one’s desires as a god.344 Who connects his heart to something else than God is considered to be a polytheist (mushrik) or an unbeliever (kāfir). Who loves God for the sake of His bliss in this world and the otherworld, or fears God out of fear for His tribulations and punishments in this world and the otherworld, he has taken partners beside God in his love (maḥabba), fear (khawf) and hope (rajāʾ). He compares it to the people of this world (ahl al-dunyā) who only love their possessions for the benefit they give to them, and not for the sake of these possessions themselves.345 The scholars of Sufism, he states, define idolatry as the inclination of the inmost self to other than God (al-iltifāt bi’l-sirr ilā ghayr Allāh). The punishment for that is to be cut off from God, covered and far removed from Him.346 Sincerity (ikhlāṣ) is to take neither dunyā nor ākhira as one’s Lord, and to only be focused on the Creator, not on

341 “Al-Dunyā ḥarām ʿalā ahl al-ākhira, wa’l-ākhira ḥarām ʿalā ahl al-dunyā, wa-humā ḥarāmān ʿalā ahl

Allāh.” The Turkish editor of the commentary traces this obscure ḥadīth back to a collection of forgeries. Ismāʿīl b. Muḥammad al-ʿAjlūnī, Kashf al-khafāʾ wa-muzīl al-ilbās ʿammā ishtahara min al- aḥādīth ʿalā alsinat al-nās, ed. Aḥmad al-Qalāsh (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-risāla), I, 410.

342 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 17b-18b (Q2:267-69).

343 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 25b-26a (Q3:92).

344 Q5:43.

345 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 103a (Q25:43).

346 Ibid., folio 30b (Q4:48).

125 creation. The Garden and the Fire belong to the realm of creation and are thus unworthy of attention.347 Al-Daylamī labels those who fulfill this demand of complete focus on God alone instead of on the Garden and the Fire as those doing good (muḥsinūn).348 While the general believers are satisfied with the Paradise that they earned by their works of obedience, these exceptional people end up in ‘the world of doing good’ (ʿālam al-iḥsān) and are “with God in a grace which is not to be described and whose description cannot be understood.”349

The motive of otherworldly vision is also present in his work. He considers seeing

God to be the reward for the believers, while being veiled from God by His anger is the punishment of the unbelievers.350 Al-Daylamī agrees with the idea of vision and nearness as the ultimate otherworldly desire, quoting Ibn ʿAṭāʾ on Q21:102:

The hearts have a desire, the spirits have a desire, and the selves have a desire. All of those [desires] come together in the Garden. The desire of the hearts is witnessing

347 Ibid., folio 55ab (Q7:29).

348 “He described al-muḥsinīn in this Surah when He said: {Those who live in awe for the fear of their

Lord; and those who believe in the signs of their Lord; and those who do not associate anything with their Lord} (Q23:57-9), meaning: they do not take as partners the Garden and the Fire, this world, and the otherworld in the longing for it and the fear of it, to His saying, the Exalted:{And those who give what they give while their hearts are full of fear because of the return to their Lord} (Q23:60), meaning they perform their works of obedience {while their hearts} meaning their interiors are afraid of inclining towards the acts of obedience, and see{that they return to their Lord} not to the

Garden or the Fire.” Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 98a (Q23:1-11).

349 Ibid.

350 Ibid., folio 146b (Q83:15).

126 (mushāhada) and vision (ruʾya), the desire of the spirits is nearness (al-qurb), and the desire of the self is delight in comfort.351

In his commentary on Q75:22-3, Faces on that day are radiant, gazing at their Lord,352 crucial verses commonly used as proof for the vision of God in the hereafter in theological disputes, he proves himself to be a proponent of the otherworldly vision of God with the naked eye.353 Most of his commentary on these verses consists of a theological polemic against the

Muʿtazila and Najjāriyya who deny this vision, favoring an Ashʿarī perspective on the matter himself.354 He also cites a lengthy ḥadīth attributed to Muhammad that gives a detailed description of the lifting of the veil and the vision of God in the hereafter by the believers. He additionally quotes an early Sufi authority to underline the importance of the vision of God. The early renunciant Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī (d. 215/830) is quoted to have said that these particular verses are enough for the people of experiential knowledge (ahl al- maʿrifa) to be happy, since there is no greater joy for the lover than to arrive at his Beloved,

351 Ibid., folio 95b (Q21:102). This saying is also to be found in al-Sulamī’s Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr. Paul Nwyia,

“Le tafsīr d’Ibn ʿAṭā (m. 309/921) extrait des Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsir de Sulamī,” in Trois oeuvres inédites de mystiques musulmans: Să qīq al-Balḫī, Ibn ʻAṭā, Niffarī, ed. Paul Nwyia (Beirut: Dar El Machreq, 1973), 96.

352 The Muʿtazilīs, arguing against the vision of God, would understand ilā rabbihā nāẓira as waiting for

[the reward of] their Lord, instead of gazing at. Anthony K. Tuft, “The Origins and Development of the

Controversy over ‘Ruʾya’ in Medieval Islam and its Relation to Contemporary Visual Theory” (UCLA

PhD Dissertation, 1979), 103-19.

353 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 143b-145a (Q75:22-3). Also in his commentary on that other central Qurʾānic verse used as proof of the otherworldly vision, Q10:26, he gives the conventional

Ashʿarī position that ziyāda is the vision of God with the eye in the hereafter. Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-

Daylamī,” folio 71a.

354 For a more detailed discussion of these different theological perspectives on the issue of the vision of God see Chapter Four.

127 and for the knower to arrive at the One on whom he has attained experiential knowledge.355

Remarkable is that al-Daylamī does not only use this verse to proof the otherworldly vision, but also uses it to plead for the possibility of a kind of visionary boundary crossing: he claims that God can also be seen in this world, and indeed is seen in this world by Sufi masters.356 Also on Q12:108 he states that a shaykh should only call people to God if he has seen and witnessed God himself (ʿalā ruʾya wa-mushāhada).357 The vision of God is thus not only limited to the hereafter, but can be experienced in this world as well. While boundary crossing was thus far mainly a theme for Sahl al-Tustarī in the form of tasting fruits and drinks from Paradise, the boundary crossing from ākhira to dunyā in these passages from al-

Daylamī is through the vision of God.358 In another passage al-Daylamī brings the vision of

God to an even more unexpected place than this world. Not only Paradise and this world are places where God can be seen with respectively the eye and the heart, also in Hell God can be seen according to al-Daylamī. He states that some of the Sufi masters said that the people of the Fire will indeed see Him in His attributes of punishment, anger and revenge, to increase their fear, awe and anxiety.359

355 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 143b-145a (Q75:22-3).

356 In his commentary on Q6:101 he further confirms this view, stating that who sees God in this world and does not die by what he saw, is not capable of understanding, nor of expressing what he saw. Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 48b (Q6:101).

357 Ibid., folio 78a (Q12:108).

358 Ibid., folio 143b-145a (Q75:22-3).

359 Ibid., folio 43b (Q6:30). This question reappears in later periods of Sufism. Aḥmad b. ʿAjība (d.

1224/1809) for example mentions ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī (d. 827/1424) to have held that some people in Hell are more privileged than some people in Paradise, because God will manifest Himself to them and they will see Him, a privilege not everyone in Paradise enjoys. Aḥmad b. ʿAjība, Al-Baḥr al-madīd fī tafsīr al-qurʾān al-majīd, ed. ʿUmar Aḥmad al-Rāwī (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2010), V, 270-71.

128 Regarding Q6:127, And for them is the abode of peace (dār al-salām), he stresses that dār al-salām does not refer to the Garden, as in the interpretation usually given by commentators. The abode of peace is the abode of God, since God Himself is al-Salām. The abode of God is in an assembly of truth, in the presence of a sovereign (Q54:55), and is not located in space. It is here that Muhammad had his visionary meeting with God during the heavenly journey, and prostrated before Him. Neither the Garden nor the Fire are in the presence of

God, because material substances (jusmāniyāt) are not capable of being in the presence of

God.360 The straight path (al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm) leads to God, who Himself is al-Salām, not to

Paradise.361

Also the idea of a return (rujūʿ) to God is present in the work of al-Daylamī. Quoting a number of Qurʾānic verses, he states that everything is constantly and continuously returning and on its way towards God, either in a voluntary (ṭawʿan) or in a compulsory

(karhan) way, gratefully or ungratefully. Ultimately all will reach God. If one asks what then is the difference between the righteous and the wicked, when all ultimately reach God, he states that the difference is that the righteous will eventually enjoy the attributes of kindness (ṣifāt al-ilṭāf) and generosity (nuʿūt al-karam), while the wicked will burn by the fire of wrath and revenge (nīrān al-qahr wa’l-naqm).362

360 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 53b (Q6:129).

361 Ibid., folio 71a (Q10:25). The same idea we can find in his treatise Mirʾāt al-arwāḥ, in which he describes how dunyā, ākhira and ʿaql form deviating paths which keep one away from the only path that matters, the path of God (ṣirāṭ Allāh). Abū Thābit Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī, “Mirʾāt al-arwāḥ,”

Şehid Ali Pasha 1346, folio 61a.

362 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 74ab (Q11:123). We most famously know the idea of eschatology as a return to God from the works of Ibn ʿArabī, who distinguishes between a compulsory return (rujūʿ iḍṭirārī), which is death as we know it, and a voluntary return (rujūʿ ikhtiyārī), which is a symbolic ‘death before death.’ For an analysis see Chittick, “Death and the

World of Imagination.” Al-Daylamī predates Ibn ʿArabī and his choice of terms is clearly different,

129

7 Eschatological commentary in Rūzbihān’s ʿArāʾis al-bayān

In the thought on the hereafter in Rūzbihān, the most important new trends in comparison with his predecessors are the explicit discussion of the (leniency of) punishment in Hell, and Paradise imagined immanently in the inner life of the believer in the form of Sufi stations and states.

7.1 Hell in the commentary of Rūzbihān

In the tafsīr of Rūzbihān, for the first time we witness a genuine interest in the topic of Hell, be it in a rather optimistic way, diminishing the harshness of punishment. In a number of commentaries on verses that deal with the punishment of Hell, Rūzbihān seems to make a case for leniency in that punishment, and for the kindness and mercy of God being stronger than His wrath. Not only is there Heilsgewissheit for believers, even for unbelievers a kind of relief in Hell is anticipated. Even the possibility of eventual salvation is hinted at.363 When commenting on Q2:136 for example, and fear the Fire which has been prepared for the unbelievers, Rūzbihān states that this verse makes clear that the punishment of the Fire is not meant for the believers. Still they have to fear it, since it serves as a reprimand and a warning for them, “like the pious father who is compassionate towards his son, who frightens his son with a lion or a sword, even though he does not hit him with the sword and does not throw him to the lion.”364 This reprimand is out of kindness (talaṭṭuf) and

but some conceptual similarities can be found. He for example holds that a return to God in the form of repentance is chosen (bi’l-ikhtiyār).

363 For a discussion of Heilsungewissheit in medieval Islamic tradition see Christian Lange, Justice,

Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008), 101-15.

364 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, I, 195.

130 compassion (shafaqa) for the believers. The purpose of God threatening the believers with the Fire while it is actually not meant for them, is that it is a way for God to manifest His coercive power (tajallī al-qahr) to the believers, which should make them stand in awe. God manifests His greatness (ʿaẓama) in the Fire, and it is as if God wants to say: “Fear me through the Fire, because I make the Fire burn and make it into a punishment.”365

Remembrance of the Fire is thus first and foremost a way for the believer to come to a realization of the attributes of power and greatness of God. Rūzbihān thus does not, unlike al-Daylamī, completely forbid to find one’s religious motivation in fear of the Fire, as long as the believer keeps in mind that God manifests His attributes by the Fire.

Even the unbelievers who do end up in Hell experience some kind of kindness and generosity from God in the thought of Rūzbihān. In a lengthy commentary on Q7:50, in which the inhabitants of the Fire call upon the inhabitants of the Garden to pour some water over them and grant them some of what God has provided to them, which is then refused, he states:

It is out of the kindness and generosity of God for His creation that He lifts the veil from the Garden for the people of the Fire so that they can bear the pains of the punishment by seeing the Gardens and their inhabitants, and this is out of His hidden kindnesses.366

Generally this verse is interpreted in the reverse meaning: their vision of Paradise and its people and the refusal to share water is to stress the heaviness of the punishment in Hell and the hopelessness of their situation.367 Rūzbihān compares the state of the people in the

365 Ibid., I, 195.

366 Ibid., I, 438.

367 Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-Zamakhsharī, Al-Kashshāf ʿan ḥaqāʾiq al-tanzīl wa-ʿuyūn al- aqāwīl fī wujūh al-taʾwīl (Beirut: Dār al-maʿrifa), II, 81-2; Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Al-Tafsīr al-kabīr (Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-bahiyya al-miṣriyya, 1938), XIV, 92-4.

131 Fire on the moment of the lifting of the veil to that of a passionate lover (ʿāshiq) who is surrounded by snow, but does not feel the bitter cold because he is too overwhelmed by the sweetness of looking at the face of his beloved. He compares this to the female companions of Joseph, who did not feel pain when cutting their hands, because they were too occupied with witnessing the beauty of Joseph.368 To make his point even stronger, he speaks about a shaykh proceeding to the night prayer who sees two lovers speaking in the snow. When he proceeds to the dawn prayer later in the morning, they are standing in the snow to their waists without even noticing the cold and the passing of time. The shaykh then falls down, losing consciousness. When he stands up again, he rips his dress apart and exclaims:

These two persons in their passionate love and witnessing did not know the difference between the dawn and the dark night, and did not notice the pains of the snow in the cold, and I claim to have love for the Creator of creation, while I am heedless of this attribute [of love].369

For the request of the inhabitants of the Fire to pour water over them or to give them some of what God has provided them with, Rūzbihān gives a couple of explanations. He says it is a request to the people in the presence (ḥaḍra) of God, who are capable of doing this. The water symbolizes God’s compassion (shafaqa), and their provision is the station of intercession (maqām al-shafāʿa). Another possible meaning he gives is that it is the water of mercy or the proximity (qurba) that God has provided them. He also states it might mean that the people in Hell are not able to cry anymore because they have run out of tears, and ask for water to be able to cry again. He then quotes lines of poetry, which seems to imply that the reason for their crying is being separated from God:

368 See Q12:31.

369 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, I, 439.

132 O you who has left, my tears are exhausted from the separation Grant me some tears with which I can weep about you370

Commenting on Q11:107, abiding therein as long as the heavens and the earth endure, except what your Lord wills, he states that although it is not part of the creed of ahl al-sunna that non-Muslims will eventually be saved from Hell when the heavens and the earth cease to exist, it is a thing hoped for because of the generosity (karam) and kindness (luṭf) of

God.371 When God wants to bring them into the Garden, He throws them into the sea of life

(baḥr al-ḥayawān), a place of purification from the traces of Hell’s punishment, and from there brings them into the Garden with the believers.372 In yet another place Rūzbihān claims that Jahannam has a passionate longing for God, just as the Garden has a passionate longing for Him.373 When God realizes the passionate longing of Jahannam for Him, He will

370 Ibid., I, 439. These lines of poetry are also quoted by al-Qushayrī in his commentary on the same verse. Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, I, 538. Both Rūzbihān and al-Qushayrī do not mention the original author of the verses. It is attributed to the collection of poetry al-Basīṭ by the Basran Abū Bakr Muḥammad b.

Hāshim al-Khālidī (d. 380/990). Cf. Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. Faḍl Allāh al-Qurashī al-ʿAdawī al-ʿUmarī, Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār (Abu Dhabi: Al-Majmaʿ al-thaqāfī, 2002), XV, 261.

371 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, II, 136. This verse has oftentimes been used as a proof of the idea that Hell is not eternal. For the theme of the non-perpetuity of the punishment in Hell and of salvation of non-

Muslims see Mohammad H. Khalil, Islam and the Fate of Others: The Salvation Question (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2012).

372 The sea of life seems to be a variant reading of the more common concept of the ‘river of life’

(nahr al-ḥayawān or nahr al-ḥayyāt). This concept is mentioned in eschatological aḥādīth, and refers to a river in which the inhabitants of Hell are washed clean from the black marks of the burning in Hell before they enter Paradise. Cf. Lange, Justice and Punishment, 147.

373 See Q50:30, The day that God says to Jahannam “Are you filled” and Jahannam answers “Is there more?”.

For the idea of Jahannam as an actual beast in the Qurʾān and its connection to late antiquity see

Lange, Paradise and Hell, ch. 1.

133 manifest His greatness (ʿaẓama) to it, compared to which Jahannam becomes like “nothing in something” (lā shayʾ fī shayʾ). First Jahannam will be a place of sighing and sobbing, but it eventually will change into a watering place and sweet smelling plant (wird wa-rayḥān), by the effect of the blessing of His appearance to it.374

At several instances Rūzbihān defines the punishment of Hell as being distant or veiled from God. A great punishment (Q2:7) reserved for the unbelievers he defines as being so far away from God that one is unaware of His blessings. The punishment of the Fire is the punishment of distance and separation from God. The inhabitants of the Fire are defined as those who have left the witnessing of the Merciful (aṣhāb al-hijrān ʿan mushāhadat al-

Raḥmān). Jahannam is described as the “fire of heedlessness” (nīrān al-ghaflāt), the greatest punishment for those who are veiled from God by their bad deeds.375

7.2 Paradise in the commentary of Rūzbihān

In the commentary on verses about Paradise two themes are dominant: nearness to, communion with and vision of God as the ultimate enjoyments of Paradise, and immanent conceptions of Paradise. These two are sometimes intertwined: the inner-worldly gardens that Rūzbihān imagines are often gardens related to communion with God, the manifestation (tajallī) of God, or to the vision (ru’ya) and witnessing (mushāhada) of Him.

Through experiencing these immanent gardens and visionary encounters with God an inner-worldly boundary crossing occurs: otherworldly eternal rewards are temporarily attained during this-worldly life through Sufi stations and states.

374 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, III, 336. These are ideas that in approximately the same period are also expressed by

Ibn ʿArabī. Cf. William C. Chittick, “Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Hermeneutics of Mercy,” in Mysticism and Sacred

Scripture, ed. Stephen T. Katz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 153-68; Khalil, Islam and the

Fate of Others.

375 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, I, 33, 88, 104, 221.

134 The eternal and unchanged vision and witnessing of God in the hereafter and communion with Him signifies the ultimate reward for Rūzbihān, a recompense for what one has endured in this world by passionately longing for God.376 In several passages he compares these rewards to or contrasts them with stations and states in this world. In the otherworld the believer can be rewarded with witnessing and nearness, just as he receives experiential knowledge and love of God as a reward in this world.377 The glad tidings in this world and the otherworld (Q10:64) Rūzbihān holds to be the witnessing of God. The otherworldly witnessing is by eye-witnessing (muʿāyana), while the this-worldly witnessing is by indirect manners:

In this world they witness clear proof (mushāhadat al-bayān) and in the otherworld they witness with the eye (mushāhadat al-ʿiyān). In this world they have unveilings (mukāshafāt), and in the otherworld witnessings (mushāhadāt). In this world they have divine manifestation (tajallī) and in the otherworld the station of coming near (maqām al-tadallī). In this world they have the vision (ru’ya) of God in dreams, and in the otherworld eye-witnessing (ʿiyān al-mushāhadāt).378

One’s state in dunyā determines one’s state in ākhira. Who was cut off from God during this- worldly life, will return to the same state on the day of resurrection. Who during this life was in a state of togetherness (jamʿ), will be together with God in the hereafter as well.379

Related to the themes of nearness and vision as the essence of the hereafter, also the trend of dhamm al-ākhira is present in Rūzbihān’s commentary, mostly in relatively moderate fashion, but sometimes as radically as in al-Daylamī’s commentary. The Qurʾānic supplication Save us from the punishment of the Fire (Q2:201), for example, Rūzbihān considers

376 Ibid., III, 28, 41, 49, 97.

377 Ibid., I, 201

378 Ibid., II, 93

379 Ibid., III, 112.

135 as a supplication to be saved from “the punishment of the veil by us being burned in the fire of the bliss (naʿīm) of the otherworld.”380 The enjoyments of Paradise are thus considered to be a veil between the believer and God, and to be consumed by this bliss is like being burned in a fire. Rūzbihān interprets Q2:229, divorce is twice (al-ṭalāq marratān), to mean that the knower (ʿārif) should divorce from both this world and the otherworld and all that it contains: there should only be place in one’s heart for God.381 Who turns away from God to something else, even if it is Paradise, has committed idolatry in regard to the realities of divine unity (ḥaqāʾiq al-tawḥid).382 Rūzbihān holds, like Maybudī, that those who are joyfully in occupation (Q36:55), are the simpletons (bulh) in the Garden. In their simple-mindedness they are so distracted by the bliss of the Garden that they are distracted from the Bestower of this bliss.383

For Rūzbihān the rewards of Paradise function to establish hierarchies according to the level of inner development of believers as well. The general believers, who have lived with wariness and fear of God, are not the same as the pious (abrār), who have a higher level of piety and thus a higher reward. The first are rewarded with the Garden, while the latter are in nearness and witnessing of God. On the verse What is with God is better for the pious

(Q3:198), he states that the witnessing of, nearness to and communion with God enjoyed by the abrār who have reached the presence of God is better than what the people wary of God

(ahl al-taqwā) enjoy of the bliss of the Garden.384 Also in other passages he stratifies

Paradise. He mentions different types of gardens for the general people (ʿumūm) and the elect (khuṣūṣ) from among the believers, each being in a different cosmological layer with a

380 Ibid., I, 83.

381 Ibid., I, 93.

382 Ibid., I, 379.

383 Ibid., II, 170.

384 Ibid., I, 224.

136 different reward. The Gardens of Dominion (basātīn al-malakūt) make up the Garden of the general people. The Garden of the Elect is eye-witnessing the essence of omnipotence

(muʿāyanat dhāt al-jabarūt). They are in a constant state of communion (wiṣāl) with their

Lord.385 While the general believers in Paradise see God only temporarily and are veiled from Him most of the time, the knowers and those inflicted by love of and longing for God are in an eternal communion with God, and are in a constant state of unveiling. Both groups receive the reward that their inner constitution is capable of bearing. Would the elite be cut off from God for a wink, “they would die in the Garden because of the vanishing of that state.” The general believers on the other hand, had they remained on the state of witnessing God continuously, “they would dissolve from the force of the strength of His majesty and beauty.”386

Turning to the immanent conceptions of Paradise, these are significantly more dominant in Rūzbihān’s commentary than we have thus far seen in the other commentaries. In Qur’ānic passages that deal with the gardens of Paradise, Rūzbihān links several attributes of these gardens to Sufi stations (maqāmāt) and states (aḥwāl). Paradise is thus to be found in the inner constitution of man, leading to a this-worldly experience of

Paradise by attaining certain stations and states on the Sufi path. As Rūzbihān says: “So blessed be who has the likes of these gardens in the abode of examination (dār al- imtiḥān).”387 Oftentimes in Rūzbihān’s commentary this interiorization of Paradise takes place in the form of this-worldly nearness to and witnessing (mushāhada) of God. When

385 Ibid., II, 238.

386 The same idea is attributed to Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī (d. c. 261/874-5), also quoted by Rūzbihān in the same passage: “Abū Yazīd –may God sanctify his spirit- said: ‘Were they veiled in the Garden for a wink from the meeting with Him, life would be spoilt for the people of the Garden.’” Baqlī, ʿArāʾis,

II, 465-66.

387 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, III, 305-06.

137 experiencing these states of nearness and witnessing, the believer is in “the gardens of witnessing,” “the gardens of communion” or “the gardens of nearness to and communion with Him.”388 Also the manifestation (tajallī) of God’s majesty and beauty Rūzbihān depicts as a garden.389 He conceives of these gardens as a foretaste of what they can expect in the hereafter. Commenting on Q2:25, this is what we have been provided with before, Rūzbihān explains that to these people who witness God during this world, God appears in the hereafter as well, appearing by the same attribute according to which they witnessed Him during this-worldly life.390

In a couple of passages Rūzbihān gives quite detailed descriptions of the structures of these interior gardens, and for whom they are attainable. These passages unfortunately do not teach us more about Rūzbihān’s structuring of the gardens of the hereafter and their significance. However, it does teach us a whole lot about his understanding of stations and states, and about how he perceives the progress of the seeker on the Sufi path. We will discuss two of them in a bit more detailed manner.391 Firstly, the gardens under which rivers flow mentioned in Q2:25 are reason for Rūzbihān to sum up a list of different interior gardens for the people of experiential knowledge (ahl al-maʿrifa) that all carry the name of a station (maqām) or state (ḥāl), for example the gardens of servanthood (ʿubūdiyya), lordship

(rubūbiyya), experiential knowledge (maʿrifa), love (maḥabba), nearness (qurba), witnessing

(mushāhada). All these gardens, he states, have a further specification and have their own river, which flows underneath. He thus links certain stations and states to each other: those symbolized as rivers emanate from those symbolized by gardens. The garden of lordship is witnessing the pureness of omnipotence (mushāhadat ṣirf al-qudra) to which the river of

388 Ibid., I, 38; II, 68, 293, 316, 534.

389 Ibid., II, 7.

390 Ibid., I, 38.

391 For another example of interiorized gardens see Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, II, 466.

138 seeing the manifestation of God in the reflection of the signs (ruʾyat tajallī al-ḥaqq fī mirʾāt al-

āyāt) belongs; the garden of witnessing is astonishment over the beauty of God (al-dahsha fī jamāl al-ḥaqq) and its river is the subtleties of allusion (laṭāʾif al-ishāra).392 He mentions a total of nineteen gardens for the knowers with corresponding rivers, which results in a neat overview of the most important technical terms and their relationships in Rūzbihān’s mysticism. This can be visualized in the following scheme:

Gardens of the knowers Garden of Consists of Contains river of Servanthood (ʿubūdiyya) Miracles (karāmāt) Realities of wisdom (ḥaqāʾiq al-ḥikma) Lordship (rubūbiyya) Witnessing of unadulterated Vision of the manifestation omnipotence (mushāhadat of God in the mirror of life ṣirf al-qudra) (ruʾyat tajallī al-ḥaqq fī mirʾāt al-ḥayāt) Experiential knowledge Grasping of divine Purity of sincerity (ṣafāʾ al- (maʿrifa) phenomena (idrāk nawādir al- ikhlāṣ) ulūhiyya) Love (maḥabba) Witnessing of blessings Contentment with the will (mushāhadat al-ālāʾ) of the Beloved (al-riḍā bi- murād al-maḥbūb) Proximity (qurba) Pursuit of the lights of the Particularity of love attribute (mubāsharat anwār (khāṣṣiyyat al-maḥabba) al-ṣifa) Witnessing (mushāhada) Astonishment for the beauty Subtleties of allusion (Laṭāʾif of God (al-dahsha fī jamāl al- al-ishāra) ḥaqq) Drawing closer (mudānāh) Familiarity with the vision of Unveiling of the communion and dissociation peculiarities of the from creation (al-istiʾnās bi- manifestation of the ruʾyat al-wiṣāl wa’l-tabarrī min attributes (kashf gharāʾib al-ḥadthān) tajallī al-ṣifāt)

392 Ibid., I, 38.

139 Communion (waṣla) Delight in passionate love Love (maḥabba) (al-ladhdha fī’l-ʿishq) Divine unity (tawḥīd) Clothing in divine clothing Stripping off human (al-talabbus bi’l-libās al- clothing (al-insilākh ʿan al- rabbānī) libās al-insānī) Subsistence (baqāʾ) Stability (tamkīn) Tranquility (sakīna) Expansion (basṭ) Relief by witnessing (al-faraj Serenity (ṭamʾanīna) bi’l-mushāhada) Hope (rajāʾ) Longing (shawq) Intimacy (uns) Extension (inbisāṭ) Unification (ittiḥād) Solitariness and judgement in presence (al-farīda wa’l- ḥukm fī’l-ḥaḍra) Intoxication (sukr) Sweetness of annihilation Purity of life of the spirit in (ḥalāwat al-fanāʾ) witnessing (ṣafāʾ ʿīsh al-rūḥ fī’l-mushāhada) Sobriety (ṣaḥw) Prophetic miracles and Direct knowledge from God alteration of individualities (al-ʿilm al-ladunī) (al-muʿjizāt wa-taqallub al- aʿyān) Angelic realm (malakūt) Vision of images of the Increase of certainty (mazīd figures of the spirits (ruʿyat al-yaqīn) taṣāwīr ashkhāṣ al-arwāḥ) Unveiling (mukāshafa) Awareness [of God] by the Secrets of perspicacity (asrār characteristic of the ecstasy al-firāsāt) of pure experiential knowledge (al-murāqaba bi- naʿt wijdān ṣafāʾ al-maʿrifa) Reality (ḥaqīqa) Ecstasy of the spirit on the Inconstancy and stability (al- stations of togetherness and talwīn wa’l-tamkīn) separation (wijdān al-rūḥ fī maqām al-jamʿ wa’l-tafriqa) Knowledge (ʿilm) Repose in ecstatic utterings Diving of the spirit into the (al-rāḥa fī’l-shaṭḥiyyāt) sea of reality (ghawṣ al-rūḥ fī baḥr al-ḥaqīqa)

The second example can be found in the commentary on another verse on the rivers of Paradise, Q47:15. Again, it does not teach us much about Rūzbihān’s conceptions of the

140 physical hereafter, but the more about how Rūzbihān conceives of the structure of Sufi stations and states and their interdependence. We will quote it at full length here to fully appreciate the manner in which Rūzbihān describes these interiorized gardens:

For the people of Truth (ahl al-ḥaqq) there are gardens in their hearts and minds in this world, and in their spirits and inmost selves. The garden of the hearts is the garden of perfection (rawḍat al-itqān), the garden of the minds is the garden of experiential knowledge (bustān al-ʿirfān), the garden of the spirits is the garden of clear proof (ḥadīqat al-bayān), and the garden of the inmost selves is the paradise of eye-witnessing (firdaws al-ʿiyān). Each of these gardens has trees, fruits and flowers. The river of the garden of the hearts is the water of eternal life, which flows in it by the characteristic of [divine] manifestation (naʿt al-tajallī) from the springs of [divine] unity (ʿuyūn al-waḥdāniyya), and it is not altered by the muddiness of the human condition (kudūrāt al-bashariyya). It makes the hearts alive through the light of certainty so that the death of ignorance does not come to them. Its trees are the trees of faith, and its fruits are the lights of certainty. The river of the garden of the minds is from the milk of omnipotence (albān al-qudra) from which God gives them to drink, to show them the purity of the lights of His omnipotence, whose experiential knowledge is inherited by His might. Its trees are wisdom and its flowers are intelligence. The river of the garden of the spirits is the river of the unveiling of Beauty (jamāl), whose spring is the sea of Majesty (jalāl), from which God gives to drink to make it good through the delight of beauty and the vision of Majesty. Its trees are love (maḥabba), its flowers are longing (shawq), and its fruits are passionate love (ʿishq). The river of the garden of inmost selves is the unveiling of the holy essence (al-dhāt al-muqaddas) from the separation of His endless emanation (fayḍ). God strengthens it with drinking until it straightens in its communion (waṣl). And there its trees are unification (tawḥīd), its flowers are solitariness (tafrīd), and its fruits are realization (taḥqīq). The companions of the hearts are the people of witnessing (ahl al-shuhūd), the companions of the minds are the people of unveiling (ahl al-kushūf), the companions of the spirits are the people of drunkenness (sakr) and ecstasy (wajd), and the companions of the inmost selves are the people of erasure (maḥw) and sobriety (ṣaḥw). The people of the witnessing are the companions of awareness [of God] (murāqaba), the people of unveiling are the people of stations (maqāmāt), the people of ecstatic finding (wujūd) are the people of states (aḥwāl), and the people of erasure

141 and sobriety are the people of uprightness (istiqāma). So blessed be who has the likes of these gardens in the abode of examination (dār al-imtiḥān).393

Schematically this structure of interiorized gardens, rivers, trees, fruits and flowers would look like this:

This approach comes closest to the description of what Böwering considers typical for the method and style of commentary in ishārī works of tafsīr: the Sufi commentator concentrates upon a short phrase or specific term from a verse, which becomes the focal point of his commentary. This is then associated with “the mystical matrix of a Ṣūfī world of ideas” in the mind of the interpreter. ‘Exegesis’ becomes ‘eisegesis’ in this process: the commentary is no longer about what the text itself is supposed to mean, it is about what the

393 Ibid., III, 305-06.

142 interpreter reads into it.394 In the two passages discussed above, the short phrase gardens under which rivers flow is enough for Rūzbihān to allude to a whole spectrum of grander themes of Sufism, which have virtually nothing to do with the apparent meaning of the

Qurʾānic verse anymore.

8 Conclusion

Taking into consideration that a significant amount of the verses in the Qurʾān deal with

Paradise and Hell, one might expect that a similar amount of the Sufi tafsīr literature covers the subject.395 These tafsīr works would thus have great potential to be ideal sources to reconstruct early Sufi conceptions of Paradise and Hell that are so underrepresented in other early Sufi works. The sources do not entirely live up to that expectation. A close reading of our sources has taught us that the hereafter was indeed not a major concern of the authors under scrutiny, and that a large number of eschatological verses were not commented upon. When these verses did provoke commentary, it was rather –as one would expect from an ishārī tafsīr- by method of allusion, using an isolated phrase or term from a verse to allude to ideas, terms and concepts from the broader Sufi world of imagination instead of using them to further elaborate on the perceived realities of Paradise and Hell from a Sufi perspective. This lack of significant commentary on the content of the verses itself to construct structured thought on the hereafter is a clear indicator of the general disregard of Sufi authors in this period for physical descriptions of Paradise and Hell, as one

394 Gerhard Böwering, “The Scriptural “Senses” in Medieval Ṣūfī Qurʾān Exegesis,” in With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, eds. Jane Dammen McAuliffe,

Barry D. Walfish and Joseph W. Goering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 348.

395 Lange estimates the amount of eschatological verses in the Qurʾān to be around one tenth of the total, perhaps even more. Part of the trouble in counting the verses that deal with Paradise and Hell, is that many verses allude to them implicitly. Lange, Paradise and Hell, ch. 1.

143 finds them in the Qurʾān. The hope expressed in the introduction of this dissertation that these Qurʾān commentaries would fill a significant gap in our knowledge on Sufi eschatology is therefore only partly fulfilled thus far. However, we have still been able to construct a completer picture of some salient themes.

So which grander eschatological themes do these five commentaries have in common in the passages that they did comment upon? The one theme that clearly stands out is that of nearness to, meeting and communion with, and vision of God in the hereafter.

This theme was present from the earliest sources included by al-Sulamī, and remains dominant in all works up to and including Rūzbihān. From that we can conclude that from the six attitudes distinguished by Lange, in our period and our sources the third and fourth attitude stand out. Paradise and Hell are not considered the main focus for the believer: the true motivation should be nearness to, contentment and vision of God. The attitudes of fear of Hell and hope for Paradise typical of the early renunciants are scarcely found in our sources. A God-centered Sufism that stresses the love and longing for God has quite pervasively surpassed these earlier attitudes in the period of our interest. Paradise only maintains its relevance as an abode of meeting with and seeing God. With Rūzbihān as the exception, the theme of Hell is virtually absent in the commentaries for the same reasons. If it is mentioned, it is rather to stress that distance from God and being veiled from Him is the true punishment. The authors are only interested in both abodes of recompense when it is somehow related to the meeting with and vision of God, or the lack thereof. This has indeed become the most dominant attitude in the ‘classical’ period. The earlier renunciant attitudes from the formative period have not even made it into al-Sulamī’s redaction, and thus not become part of the canon of ishārī tafsīr.

Another common theme, very much related to the former, is the tendency to stratify the rewards of Paradise. In all commentaries we have come across a variant of the division between general believers and the elite, in which the general believers are distracted by the

144 physical pleasures of Paradise, while the elite realizes that only God matters. Especially from Maybudī onwards this comes to the fore very clearly. This may have something to do with the rise of more hierarchical structures within Sufism around the same time, in which the terminology of ʿāmm and khāṣs played an important role.396 This stress on otherworldly nearness to and vision of God and the related stratification of rewards in Paradise is not per se unique to Sufi approaches to Paradise. The importance of nearness to and vision of God is well-established in Islamic eschatological literature, as well as the exclusivity of this reward for the highest class of believers.397 Although Sufis were keen and eager to employ these traditions, as we have seen in the case of al-Daylamī, they are not typically ‘Sufi’ or ‘ishārī’ as such. What is unique to the Sufis that we have studied is the radicalness with which they have embraced the idea of the vision of God, and their use of this idea to establish an hierarchy between the common believers who do not understand what Paradise is really about, and the Sufi elite who do have this proper understanding. This is also perhaps the best example of how the hereafter was ‘politicized’ in Sufi thought. This stratification was not a purely spiritual matter: it had very tangible consequences for the social and political stratification of Sufi networks and wider society.398

Two major departures from these general trends can be discerned in the attitudes towards the hereafter, in the two latest commentaries under discussion. The first variation is in the tafsīr of al-Daylamī, in which we have witnessed a radicalization of the concept of dhamm al-ākhira. Where the earlier commentaries showed a mere disregard of the hereafter,

396Cf. Anjum, “Mystical Authority”; Jonathan A.C. Brown, “The Last Days of al-Ghazzālī and the

Tripartite Division of the Sufi World: Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazzālī’s Letter to the Seljuq Vizier and

Commentary,” The Muslim World 96 (2006): 89-113.

397 Cf. Aziz al-Azmeh, “Rhetoric for the Senses: A Consideration of Muslim Paradise Narratives,”

Journal of Arabic Literature 26, no. 3 (1995): 227-31; Lange, Paradise and Hell, ch. 5.

398 Cf. Anjum, “Mystical Authority.”

145 al-Daylamī goes as far as warning that too strong a focus on recompense in Paradise and

Hell can lead to shirk. This is no longer a mild disregard, this is outright contempt for the hereafter. Although similar ideas existed already in the formative period, it is nowhere so pervasively dominant as in al-Daylamī’s commentary.399 It is difficult to estimate whether this radicalization is a common characteristic of Sufi thought in al-Daylamī’s age or whether it is only typical of al-Daylamī. I tend to believe the latter is the case. Al-Daylamī has been described as a “lone wolf,” and later authorities have not adopted his writings and thought.400 The fact that this radicalization is already tempered again in the work of

Rūzbihān and did not herald an epistemic shift in the commentary tradition testifies to this.

Al-Daylamī’s ideas on this matter did not leave a clear mark on the later tradition.

The second deviation from the earlier tradition is the interiorization of Paradise and

Hell in the tafsīr of Rūzbihān. This might perhaps be considered an ‘epistemic shift’ in the thinking on the hereafter. Although immanent conceptions of the hereafter have been present from the formative period onwards and did show up in the other commentaries every now and then, in the work of Rūzbihān it really becomes a grander theme. His ideas on the manifestation (tajallī) of God in this world and the possibility of seeing and witnessing Him foreshadow later developments in the schools of Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) and Najm al-Dīn Kubrā (d. 654/1256). Also Rūzbihān’s ideas on the non-perpetuity and leniency in the punishment of Hell foreshadow ideas that would become more common – and more profoundly elaborated- in the thought of Ibn ʿArabī and his school. This study stops at Rūzbihān however, and more research is needed to see how the thought of

399 For more sayings representative of this contempt for the hereafter, see Lange’s description of the fourth attitude. Lange, Paradise and Hell, ch. 7.

400 “The conclusion seems inescapable that al-Dailamī was something of a lone wolf; and this would account for the oblivion into which his voluminous writings have fallen.” Arberry, “Works of al-

Dailamī,” 51.

146 Rūzbihān marks a shift from the ‘classical’ period of Sufism to the period of the larger Sufi schools.401

In this chapter we have analyzed what our Sufi exegetes thought Paradise (and to a lesser extent, Hell) to be like, and how, therefore, they conceived the final boundary crossing of humankind in Islam’s eschatological meta-structure, from this world to the otherworld. In the next chapter we will focus on the initial boundary crossing from the otherworld to this world: Adam’s banishment from Paradise. Elaborating, in particular, on the dominance of nearness and vision we witnessed in this chapter, we will analyze how these themes are present in the initial crossing: to what extent is nearness and vision lost with the banishment from Paradise?

401 A further in-depth study of the commentary of Rūzbihān –especially on the concept of tajallī- may proof to be promising to come to a better understanding of how Ibn ʿArabī’s ideas relate to ideas already present in his broader environment.

147 148 3 The first boundary crossing: Adam descending

1 Introduction

In Islamic traditions, as well as in Jewish and Christian traditions, Adam represents more than his own identity as a prophet or the first man: he is a paradigmatic human being. The constitution of Adam is considered to apply to humankind as a whole. Therefore, when we as historians of religion study narratives of Adam in these traditions, we study more than just Adam: we are engaged in anthropology, and our question becomes, what is a human according to these religious traditions? When we discuss narratives on the banishment of

Adam from Paradise to this-worldly life, it is thus not only about the event as such: the narratives under scrutiny express deeper concerns within these religious traditions about the meaning and appreciation of this-worldly life for the whole of humankind. This is equally the case for Sufism. Paul Nwyia has noted that “intériorisation des figures prophétiques” is emblemic for Sufi understandings of the Qurʾān:

“In their meditation on the Qurʾan, the figures of the prophets become prototypes of mystic experience or figures of religious consciousness. That which they read in the stories of the ancients (akhbār al-awwalīn) are not “histories” but a lesson (ʿibra), a doctrine on the relationships between God and man. In this way Abraham becomes the figure of suffering but faithful consciousness or the prototype of friendship with God, Moses, the figure of spiritual experience as dialogue with God, etc.”402

The question of Adam’s banishment from Paradise has raised some fundamental questions about the nature of evil in the religious thought of the monotheistic traditions.403

402 English translation from Sands, Ṣūfi Commentaries, 70. Original quote from Nwyia, Exégèse

Coranique, 178.

403 Some, not accidentally Christian, theoreticians of the study of religion and mysticism have taken the story as a paradigm for their theories. For example Mircea Eliade stated, based on Christian

149 Von Grunebaum has argued that evil is only accidental in Islam, not structural, opposed to

Christianity, where it is both structural and accidental. The banishment from Paradise is the effect of an act of human fallibility, nothing more, nothing less. The question of evil, and with it the fall of Adam, he holds, is thus not as constitutive for Islam as it is for Christianity, where the coming of Christ is necessary to resolve the primal disorder brought about by

Adam’s fall.404 In Islamic tradition the character of Iblīs (Satan), the story of his refusal to bow down before Adam and his subsequent banishment could be more important than

mysticism and his observations of what he calls ‘archaic’ religion, that every religion, and more specifically ‘primitive’ religion, has a notion of a fall, a sense that something pivotal from a ‘time out of time’ (illud tempus) has been lost with the beginning of human history, which results in a

“nostalgia” or “yearning for Paradise.” One of the main purposes of mystic ecstasy, both in

‘primitive’ and ‘Judeo-Christian’ mysticism, then, is the return to Paradise. Mircea Eliade, “The

Yearning for Paradise in Primitive Tradition,” Daedalus 88:2 (1959): 264-66; Daniel P. Pals, Seven

Theories of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 168. More theoreticians of mysticism have shown interest in the fall of Adam as a key event for humanity, and as an explanatory model for mystical experience, mostly with an implicit Christian theology. Zaehner, in a christocentric approach to non-Christian mysticism, uses the fall of Adam to come to a typology of the phenomenon of mysticism itself. He holds that the doctrine of the Fall serves as an explanation for monistic mysticism, which he defines as ‘realising the eternal oneness of one’s own soul’, which he opposes to the ‘mysticism of the love of God’ of the monotheistic traditions. Robert C. Zaehner, At

Sundry Times: An Essay in the Comparison of Religions (London: Faber and Faber, 1958), 132; Robert C.

Zaehner, Mysticism Sacred and Profane (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), 191-92. For a critique of Zaehner see Ninian Smart, “Interpretation and Mystical Experience,” Religious Studies 1 no. 1

(1965): 75-87.

404 Gustave E. von Grunebaum, “Observations on the Muslim Concept of Evil,” SI 31 (1970): 117-19.

150 Adam’s fall for understanding the place of evil within Islam.405 As we will see in this chapter, for the case of Sufism one could even legitimately argue whether the word ‘fall’ should be used at all for the banishment of Adam, since not all Sufi authors saw it as a degradation of the status of Adam and humankind at all, quite the contrary. Therefore, the more neutral word ‘banishment’ will be used to signify this event.

So, if the primary function of the Adam narrative in Islamic traditions is indeed not to explain the presence of evil in the world, then what function does it have? In this chapter we will look for an answer by discussing several aspects of the banishment of Adam within

Sufi imaginaries. Firstly, we will try to understand why Adam ‘had’ to be banished in the thought of our authors: how do they interpret it to fit within God’s larger (eschatological) plan with humankind, and how do they deal with questions of predestination and theodicy related to it? Secondly, we will try to understand what our authors exactly held to be ‘lost’ by the banishment: what exactly constitutes the yearning to Paradise during this-worldly life? What do they hope to regain in their thought?

We will firstly have a short look at the Qurʾānic narrative and note some general points of discussion in conventional works of theology and tafsīr, most notably the school of

405 One could indeed argue, as has Steenbrink, that Satan is more prominent in the Qurʾānic narrative. The question of the origin of evil, he states, does not center as much around Adam and

Eve in the Qurʾān as it does in the Biblical narrative. Perhaps Satan, suggests Steenbrink, should be considered the one who commits the original sin by refusing to prostrate to Adam. Karel Steenbrink,

“Created Anew: Muslim Interpretations of the Myth of Adam and Eve,” in Out of Paradise: Eve and

Adam and their Interpreters, eds. Bob Becking and Susanne Hennecke (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix

Press, 2010), 174-75. Cf. Whitney S. Bodman, The Poetics of Iblīs: Narrative Theology in the Qurʾān

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), 10-12; Adnan Aslan, “The Fall, Evil and Suffering in

Islam,” in Ursprung und Überwindung des Bösen und des Leidens in den Weltreligionen, ed. Peter Koslowski

(Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2001), 31-62; Lloyd Ridgeon, “A Sufi Perspective of Evil,” Iran 36

(1998): 116-19.

151 Nishapur. Then, after presenting a typology of attitudes towards the banishment in non- tafsīr sources, we will go through our Sufi commentaries chronologically.

2 Adam in the Qurʾān

Adam as an individual person is mentioned 18 times in different verses in the Qurʾān. A significant part of these verses deals with the creation of Adam and his sojourning in and banishment from Paradise, most notably Q2:30-35, 7:11-25 and 20:115-23. In these specific passages, the narrative is preceded by the story of the refusal of Iblīs to bow down before

Adam and his subsequent banishment. In short, we read in the Qurʾān the following. God announces the creation of man from clay (Q15:26; 17:61) to be a ‘vicegerent’ (khalīfa) on earth. The angels question God’s plan because they foresee humankind shedding blood and spreading corruption on earth, to which God responds with “I know what you do not know”

(Q2:30). God then teaches Adam the names of everything, and the angels recognize that they do not possess this knowledge (Q2:31-33). God subsequently demands from the angels that they prostrate before Adam, which they all do except for Iblīs, who arrogantly refuses because You created me from fire and created him from clay (Q7:11-12; 2:34; 15:31; 17:61; 18:50;

20:116; 38:74). God places Adam and his unnamed spouse in the Garden (al-janna) where they can eat what they want, as long as they do not approach one specific tree, lest you do not become angels or immortal (Q7:20). However, Satan seduces them to “slip” (fa-azallahumā al-shayṭān ʿanhā) (Q2:36), and to eat from the tree of immortality and a power that does not yield

(shajarat al-khuld wa-mulkin lā yablā) (Q20:120). After that they become aware of their nakedness and try to cloth themselves with leaves from Paradise (Q20:121; 7:22). God banishes them from Paradise, commanding them to descend together with Satan as enemies of each other (Q2:36; 20:122-123). On earth they have a dwelling place and a provision

152 for a time (Q2:36). God gives Adam ‘words’ (kalimāt) to repent and accepts his repentance

(Q2:37).406

3 The banishment of Adam in tafsīr, narrative religious literature and theology

Before moving on to the discussion of the banishment of Adam in Sufism in general and in

Sufi Qurʾān commentaries in particular, we will have a closer look at some aspects of the banishment as discussed in conventional tafsīr works, in narrative religious literature (the genre of qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, the tales of the prophets) and in theology. In Jamāʿī-Sunnī Islam the banishment of Adam has mainly been discussed in ḥadīth literature, tafsīr and in the genre of qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ.407 Beside a lot of details on particularities of the story, some attention has been paid in this literature to the sin of Adam, and the theological problems it poses in relation to the impeccability (ʿiṣma) of the prophets and predestination (al-qadr wa’l- qaḍāʾ).408 Once the doctrine of impeccability became dominant in Islamic theology, it raised a challenge to the interpretation of the banishment of Adam in the Qurʾān and in ḥadīth

406 Cf. EQ, s.v. Adam and Eve, I, 22-26 (C. Schöck); EI2, s.v. Ādam, I, 176-78 (J. Pedersen); EI3, s.v. Adam

(R. Tottoli); EQ, s.v. Fall of Man, II, 172-73 (A.H. Johns). For an encompassing study of Adam in tafsīr,

ḥadīth and Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ see Cornelia Schöck, Adam im Islam: Ein Beitrag zur Ideengeschichte der Sunna

(Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1993) and M J. Kister, “Ādam: A Study of Some Legends in Tafsīr and

Ḥadīth Literature,” Israel Oriental Studies 13 (1993): 113-74.

407 In this paragraph we will only focus on the Jamāʿī-Sunnī tradition, which is most directly relevant for the Sufi interpretations under scrutiny. Shiʿī readings are represented in Kister, “Ādam”. For an account of the Fall in Ismāʿīlī thought see Bernard Lewis, “An Ismaili Interpretation of the Fall of

Adam,” BSOAS 9 no. 3 (1938): 691-704.

408 Schöck, Adam im Islam, 89; Josef van Ess, Zwischen Ḥadīt und Theologie. Studien zum Entstehen prädestinatianischer Überlieferung (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1975), 162.

153 literature.409 The general tendency is to belittle the sin of Adam -if considered a sin at all-, referring to it as a mere mistake (e.g. Adam did not understand the prohibition properly, and thought it was only for the specific tree alluded to, not for the entire species), forgetfulness (using Q20:115 in the argument) or imposing the burden of the sin on his spouse Eve.410 On the issue of predestination the general tendency is to point out how all

409 The idea of ʿiṣma of the prophets first appeared in Muʿtazilī-theology as early as the 2nd/8th century, and had become the mainstream Muʿtazilī position by the time of al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/935). In the 11th century ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Baghdādī (d.429/1037) claimed a consensus among Ashʿarīs that prophets were impeccable, but this consensus seems not to have existed undisputedly. A variety of positions can be found within the school. In Ashʿarism, the main position became that prophets were free from major sins (kabāʾir) from the beginning of their prophetic mission, but could possibly commit minor sins (ṣaghāʾir), while being free from unbelief before the beginning of their prophetic mission. In the Māturīdī school the doctrine of ʿiṣma indeed seems to have been practically undisputed, both before and after the prophetic mission. Traditionists were generally more reluctant to accept the idea of ʿiṣma, since the idea conflicted with clear texts according to them. EI2, s.v. ʿIṣma, IV, 182-84 (W. Madelung; E. Tyan); Schöck, Adam im Islam, 127. For an exposition of the polemic between Traditionists and Ashʿarīs in Damascus on the issue as late as the 8th/14th century see Younus Mirza, “Was Ibn Kathīr the ‘Spokesperson’ for Ibn Taymiyya? Jonah as a Prophet of

Disobedience,” JQS 16 no. 1 (2014): 1-19.

410 Kister, “Ādam,” 147-52. Some interesting ideas can especially be found in commentaries that are more theologically than philologically inclined. For example the prominent theologian Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944) mentions an opinion in his Taʾwīlāt al-qurʾān that Adam and Eve did not properly understand why they should not approach the tree. Fear of sickness or leaving it for someone else could have been possibilities for God’s command not to approach it. Had they known it was because eating from the tree was religiously prohibited (ḥarām), they would not have touched it. Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad al-Māturīdī, Taʾwīlāt al-qurʾān, ed. Bekir Topaloğlu (Istanbul: Mizan

Yayınevi, 2005), I, 90-1.

154 events that happened to Adam and Eve were decreed thousands of years in advance, and were thus inevitable.411

The consequences of the sin of Adam have received a fair amount of attention in the narratives on Adam. The most important consequences were considered a loss of

‘completeness’ in several aspects, both physical and intellectual.412 The loss of nearness to

God, a typical Sufi-eschatological theme as we have seen in chapter 2, also found its way into more conventional retellings of the story of Adam. For example al-Thaʿlabī (d.

427/1035) reports a long quote in his Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ of the early Sufi authority al-Shiblī, who says in relation to Q7:24, Go down as enemies to each other, that “it does not befit who disobeys Us [God] to be in Our proximity.”413

The commentaries of contemporaries of al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī in the school of

Nishapur are most important for us to understand how these two Sufi Qurʾān commentaries are embedded in their wider scholarly context. They generally do not offer elaborate narratives on the nature of Adam’s sin, the deeper reasons of the banishment, and its place within God’s greater plan with humankind; at least, not as grand as one would expect for

411 Kister, “Ādam,” 154-55; Schöck, Adam im Islam, 89-94. Central in Islamic theological debates on predestination is a ḥadīth in which Adam responds to an accusation by Moses that it is because of his sin that humankind is not in Paradise. Adam acquits himself from this arguing that he should not be held accountable for something that was already predestined before he was even created. Van Ess,

Zwischen Ḥadīt und Theologie, 161-68.

412 Schöck, Adam im Islam, 111-17.

413 Schöck, Adam im Islam, 120-21. Schöck refers to an unspecified edition from Cairo that I was not able to locate: Abū Isḥāq Aḥmad al-Thaʿlabī, Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ al-musammā ʿarāʾis al-majālis (Cairo), 27-8.

The editions available to me do not refer to the saying. It is thus not clear to me whether the saying can indeed be found in al-Thaʿlabī’s work. Al-Thaʿlabī is indeed known for incorporating Sufi material into his conventional works, for example into his Qurʾān commentary. See Saleh, Formation,

20.

155 such a seemingly pivotal cornerstone of religious anthropology. They mainly deal with ostensibly trivial questions such as what kind of tree it was, how Satan was able to enter the

Garden, whether the Garden was in heaven or on earth, to where Adam and Eve were sent down etc.

Al-Māwardī (d. 450/1058) mentions four prevailing opinions about the act of Adam in his commentary al-Nukat wa’l-ʿuyūn.414 The first is that Adam forgot the prohibition, as mentioned in Q20:115. The argument, then, is that for prophets forgetting a prohibition is a form of disobedience to God, because of their superior knowledge and high rank. The second is that he ate from it while he was drunk, and was held responsible for it as if he was sober. The third is that he ate from it willfully and with knowledge of the prohibition. He indeed slipped (zalla) and he should indeed be blamed for willful disobedience. The fourth is the most remarkable explanation: Adam justified it to himself by interpreting (taʾwīl) the prohibition falsely. He slipped because the proof (dalīl) was covered up by Iblīs (Q7:22). It should therefore not be considered a major sin (kabīra), of which prophets are free.415 Al-

Māwardī himself is quite sure that they indeed did not realize that it was an act of disobedience. Otherwise Adam would not have done it, since he cannot commit a major sin.416

Al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035), in his commentary Al-Kashf wa’l-bayān ʿan tafsīr al-qurʾān, neither treats the issue of impeccability, nor the issue of predestination extensively. He

414 Strictly speaking Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Ḥabīb al-Māwardī al-Baṣrī does not belong to the Nishapuri school of exegesis as defined by Walid Saleh. We consider it justified however to include him under this label, since he resided in the environment of Nishapur for some time and was the teacher of two sons of al-Qushayrī. Saleh, “Nishapuri School”; Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b.

Muḥammad b. Ḥabīb al-Māwardī al-Baṣrī, Al-Nukat wa’l-ʿuyūn, ed. Al-Sayyid b. ʿAbd al-Maqṣūd b.

ʿAbd al-Raḥīm (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1990), I, 12.

415 Māwardī, Nukat, I, 105-06.

416 Ibid., II, 211.

156 only briefly states that God’s announcement that He shall make a vicegerent on earth indicates that God predestined Adam’s banishment from the Garden by his sin to fulfill this vicegerency on earth. Al-Thaʿlabī also mentions the ḥadīth in which Adam and Moses debate

Adam’s responsibility for the banishment of the whole of humankind.417 Al-Thaʿlabī’s direct student al-Wāḥidī (d. 468/1076) mentions a couple of the aforementioned interpretations of

Adam’s sin in his largely philological and linguistic extended commentary al-Basīṭ. He concludes his summary by stating that it surely was an act of disobedience (maʿṣiya), but that it was committed before he had the status of a prophet.418 He therewith follows the mainstream Ashʿarī position on the issue of impeccability of prophets: prophetic figures are capable of committing major sins (kabāʾir) before their prophetic mission begins. As the main loss caused by the banishment he mentions status (manzila) and easy livelihood.419

In his conventional commentary (the second nawbat) Maybudī shows a specific interest in the slip of Adam, and gives a lengthy explanation on the nature of mistakes and sins among prophets. He upholds a typical Ḥanbalī perspective on the matter, recognizing minor sins (ṣaghāʾir) as possible, but rules out major sins (kabāʾir). The wisdom of the prophets committing minor sins is that it humbles them and leads them to the praiseworthy pious acts of asking pardon and supplication. He also quotes the

417 Abū Isḥāq Aḥmad al-Thaʿlabī, Al-Kashf wa’l-bayān, ed. Abū Muḥammad b. ʿĀshūr (Beirut: Dār iḥyāʾ al-turāth al-ʿarabī, 2002), I, 177. For the debate between Adam and Moses see footnote 411 in this chapter.

418 ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Wāḥidī, Al-Tafsīr al-Basīṭ, ed. Muḥammad b. Ṣāliḥ al-Fawzān (Ryadh: Jāmiʿat

Muḥammad b. Saʿūd al-islāmiyya, 2009), II, 382-83.

419 ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Wāḥidī, Al-Wasīṭ fī tafsīr al-qurʾān al-majīd, ed. ʿĀdil Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Mawjūd

(Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1994) I, 122.

157 aforementioned argument between Adam and Moses, and points out that Adam’s sin was predestined with the aim to make him vicegerent on earth.420

Concluding, we can state that the conventional tafsīr literature of the period is rather brief and technical on the verses related to the banishment of Adam. It hardly offers larger narratives or deeper reflection on the theological problems that the Adam narrative in the Qurʾān poses.

4 The banishment of Adam in Sufism: non-tafsīr sources

In early Sufism there is hardly an elaborate prophetology of Adam available in separate treatises. Most Sufi material on Adam deals with the refusal of Iblīs to follow the command of God to prostrate before him. In fact, the main character of interest in these narratives is

Iblīs. Adam mainly figures in the background to make a point about the character of Iblīs.421

Where Adam does receive specific mention, we can roughly distinguish between two approaches to his descending to this-worldly life. The first is an explicitly negative approach in early renunciant Sufism that stresses the vileness of this-worldly life. The second is a slightly more positive approach that considers Adam’s sin an act that elevated humankind by bringing them an experience that they otherwise would not have attained.

This-worldly life is not a negative consequence of Adam’s act in this approach, but something that humankind has to go through –and God intended them to go through- for their own benefit.

The banishment of Adam has evoked some interest among early authors, mostly in isolated sayings. Some of these sayings seem to have a background in the early zuhd

420 Maybudī, Kashf, I, 152-54

421 For a thorough study of the fall of Satan in Sufi thought see Peter Awn, Satan’s Tragedy and

Redemption: Iblīs in Sufi Psychology (Leiden: Brill, 1983) and Bodman, Poetics of Iblīs.

158 movement, and express an explicitly negative attitude towards this-worldly life, insinuating that it is comparable to a place for defecation. Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī allegedly stated that the first that Adam did when he descended from Paradise was to relieve himself from his excrements.422 Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 386/996) writes in his Qūt al-qulūb that a consequence of the eating from the tree is that Adam develops the need to evacuate his bowels; it is only the fruits of this specific tree that have that quality, which is the reason for the prohibition to eat from it. Adam requests a place to defecate, but is answered that no place in Paradise is suitable for that purpose. He has to be banished to this world to relieve himself.423

Another approach to the banishment of Adam is related to the Sufi tendency to direct all attention and motivation to God at the cost of being motivated by anything created, even otherworldly recompense. For Ibn ʿAṭāʾ for example, eating from the tree was a form of idolatry, because Adam sought eternity through something else than God. He quotes Adam to have said that he does not understand why God punishes him: after all, his motivation to eat from the tree was to be eternally near God. God reproaches him:

Adam, you have sought your immortality (khulūd) from the tree, not from Me, while immortality is through my power (yad, hand) and might (mulk). So you have ascribed partners to Me, even though you did not realize it. But I called [this to] your attention by expelling you, so that you would not forget Me at some point.424

422 Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb fī muʿāmalat al-maḥbūb wa-waṣf ṭarīq al-murīd ilā maqām al-tawḥīd

(Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Maymaniyya, 1893), translated by Richard Gramlich, Die Nahrung der Herzen: Abū

Ṭālib al-Makkī’s Qūt al-qulūb (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992), I, 244; Gramlich, Weltverzicht, 109.

423 Makki, Qūt al-qulūb (trans. Gramlich), I, 244. Gramlich mentions this particular saying in a couple of sayings that, in the spirit of asceticism (zuhd) and contemptus mundi all liken this world to a place of defecation. Gramlich, Weltverzicht, 109. The idea probably has its origin in the early zuhd movement but finds, as so many zuhd sayings, its way into later Sufi literature.

424 ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. Aḥmad al-Shaʿrānī, al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Azhar, 1925), I, 82;

Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 261.

159

It is interesting to note how Ibn ʿAṭāʾ seemingly does not feel hindered by notions of ʿiṣma at all, and can make the statement that Adam, though unintentionally, committed idolatry. As a Ḥanbalī it is likely that he adhered to a non-theological, strictly text-based form of creed that did not problematize the idea that prophets could sin. The result of the sin, the sojourn in this-worldly life, is something explicitly negative for Ibn ʿAṭāʾ: he argued that joyfulness only befitted man when returned to the original abode of Adam, Paradise. Therefore in this- worldly life grief and weeping should be dominant.425

Other approaches to the banishment seem more influenced by fundamental theological questions, and take the form of a mystical theodicy. They are generally more positive in their approach, and tend to see the descending to this-worldly life rather as something that elevated than degraded humankind. The early, more mystically oriented

(contrary to more zuhd oriented) authority Sahl al-Tustarī for example dedicates one whole chapter in his Laṭā’if al-qiṣaṣ to the “subtleties” involved in the story of Adam.426 He holds that the subtlety of Adam’s banishment from Paradise for eating wheat from a tree –a seemingly disproportionate punishment for a light sin perpetrated only once- is that it effectuated the divine decree that Adam should be vicegerent on earth, although he himself wished to stay in Paradise. Sahl compares this to Muḥammad, who preferred to stay in

Mecca, but who had to leave for Medina because of the harshness he encountered in Mecca.

This was necessary in order to fulfill what was decreed by God, to grant him power and elevate his words. The sincere servant Adam can, as it were, not help his sin: it is ultimately

God who wants him to do it, to fulfill a certain aspect of His divine decree. It is therefore that God grants the possibility of repentance, forgives and grants mercy. Also, unlike Satan,

425 Gramlich, Sufi und Koranausleger, 1-5.

426 It is uncertain whether this treatise is indeed authored by Sahl al-Tustarī. See Böwering, Mystical

Vision, 16-7.

160 Adam did not believe in the sin that he committed, and recognized his mistake. Another reason for Adam’s banishment that Sahl mentions is that he had to leave so that also unbelievers could be in his loins, since unbelievers cannot be in Paradise.427

The polymath Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) in the chapter on maʿrifat-i dunyā

(Knowledge of This World) in his Kīmiyā-yi saʿādat describes the banishment of humankind in general to this-worldly life as a positive event, something that enriches humankind. By descending to earth humankind could come to true self-knowledge, knowledge of creation and thus of God. Also, by going through this-worldly life humankind receives an extra reward that God promised to him. 428 We find a more elaborate mystical-theological expression of this same idea in a treatise on the names of God by a contemporary of

Maybudī, the Marv-based Persian Shāfiʿī author Aḥmad al-Samʿānī (d. 534/1140). In his work Rawḥ al-arwāḥ fī sharḥ asmāʾ al-malik al-fattāḥ he discusses the banishment of Adam in his explanation of God’s mercy. He argues that God created Adam to know God. Adam’s banishment was necessary to come to a full understanding of the names of God. While

Paradise is ruled by the names of mercy and gentleness, Hell is governed by the names of wrath and severity. In this-worldly life both names are manifest. In Paradise Adam only experienced God’s beauty and mercy. By the banishment Adam attained knowledge of the names of majesty and wrath as well, and thus attained a fuller understanding of God.429 Al-

427 Sahl al-Tustarī, Laṭāʾif al-qiṣaṣ, ed. Kamāl ʿAllām (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2004), 21-4.

428 Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, Kīmiyā-i saʿādat (Tehran, 1960), I, 72-3.

429 William C. Chittick, “The Myth of Adam’s Fall in Aḥmad Samʿānī’s Rawḥ al-arwāḥ,” in The Heritage of Sufism, Volume I: Classical Persian Sufism from its Origins to Rumi (700-1300), ed. Leonard Lewisohn

(Oxford: Oneworld, 1999), 344-45. A similar, yet more theocentric, argument can be found in the kalām-tradition. For example Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya reasoned that the banishment of Adam from

Paradise was necessary for all attributes of God to be effectuated. Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr b. Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Miftāḥ dār al-saʿāda wa-manshūr wilāyat al-ʿilm wa’l-irāda (Cairo: Dār al-ḥadīth, 1994), 12-

17; Jon Hoover, “God’s Wise Purposes in Creating Iblīs. Ibn Qayyim al-Ğawziyyah’s Theodicy of God’s

161 Samʿānī stresses the importance of love and mercy: Adam was created to love God and to be loved. Love can only exist by coming together (with God), but also demands separation, testing and trial. By experiencing God’s wrath in these forms the love of humankind for God becomes stronger. Adam ate from the tree because he knew that would be the way for him to strengthen his love for God through separation and tribulation.430

5 Loss of nearness and vision: the tafsīr of al-Sulamī

In Chapter Two we have witnessed the dominance of vision of and nearness to God in Sufi eschatology. These themes also dominate the understanding of the verses on Adam’s banishment from Paradise in the commentary of al-Sulamī. Several authorities quoted by al-Sulamī hold the idea that the banishment of Adam was a punishment for looking at the tree instead of at God during his stay in Paradise. The punishment then consists of being deprived of this vision of God during this-worldly existence, only to be restored in the hereafter. When Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq is quoted on Adam’s banishment from Paradise, the themes of nearness, vision and a God-centered motivation appear: God had ordered Adam to be only occupied with Him and not forget Him in any state. Adam broke this covenant, states

Jaʿfar, by preoccupying himself with the bliss of the Garden instead of with the Benefactor.

God expelled Adam from the Garden “so that he would know that the bliss (naʿīm) lies in being close to the Benefactor, not in the enjoyment of eating and drinking.”431 The

Names and Attributes,” in A Scholar in the Shadow: Essays in the Legal and Theological Thought of Ibn

Qayyim al-Ğawziyyah, eds. Caterina Bori and Livnat Holzman, Oriente Moderno 90, no. 1 (2010): 114. It is very likely that Ibn al-Qayyim elaborated on themes that are already much older in kalām. This needs further investigation.

430 Chittick, “Adam’s Fall,” 348-49.

431 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 450.

162 banishment from Paradise is only temporary, until the Day of Judgment, because Adam

‘only’ viewed Paradise and its bliss with the eye, but still kept his heart occupied with God:

[H]ad he looked at it with his heart, a complete abandonment would have been proclaimed against him for all eternity. But then God had compassion on him and was merciful to him, (as seen) in His words: {then his lord chose him and relented towards him and guided (him)} (20:122).432

In the commentary on Q7:23, Our Lord, We have wronged ourselves, al-Ḥusayn433 defines

ẓulm as being distracted from God by something other than Him. Ibn ʿAṭāʾ states they have wronged themselves by being distracted from Him by the Garden.434 Also Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-

Qurashī stresses that the result of eating from the tree is estrangement from God: what is lost is nearness (qurb). While God firstly addresses Adam in plain speech (qawl; Q2:35) when he tells him to enter the Garden, a sign of nearness, this changes to summoning (nidāʾ;

Q7:22) him to leave after eating from the tree, a sign of distance.435

Al-Sulamī’s commentary contains two specific quotes that can be read as early instances of reconciling the ʿiṣma doctrine with the Qurʾānic suggestion that Adam committed a sin. These quotes both represent a different strategy. One strategy is to argue that what appears to be a sin is actually something that elevated the status of Adam. Al-

Sulamī quotes al-Dārāni in the commentary on Q7:20, so Satan whispered to them. Although he whispered to them because he wanted evil for them, it had the opposite effect of causing the elevation of Adam and his reaching the highest rank. The sin (khaṭīʾa) of Adam was the

432 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 450-52; Mayer, Spiritual Gems, 90.

433 It is unfortunately not clear who al-Sulamī means by al-Ḥusayn. His Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya does not mention anyone specifically as al-Ḥusayn. It could be al-Ḥusayn b. Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj (d. 309/922), but also al-Ḥusayn b. al-Faḍl or al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad al-Rāzī.

434 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 224.

435 Ibid., I, 224.

163 most complete action he ever did, because it disciplined him, and placed him on the station of realities (maqām al-ḥaqāʾiq). Al-Shiblī offers a similar idea. He holds that when the prophets commit a sin (dhanb), it leads them to honor and an elevated rank. The sin of

Adam lead him to electedness (ijtibāʾ) and chosenness (iṣṭifāʾ). The other strategy is to argue that it was not a sin at all, rather a misunderstanding. On the verse and do not come near this tree (Q7:19) al-Sulamī quotes an anonymous source to have said that Adam thought the command to be for the specific tree that God pointed to, while God actually meant the entire species. He mistakenly approached a different tree from the same species. The repentance, then, was not for a violation of God’s command, but for lack of caution.436

Al-Sulamī has more sayings to offer, mostly on the prostration of the angels and the stubbornness and arrogance of Satan in the narrative. He quotes Abū Ḥafṣ (al-Ḥaddād, d.

265/878-9) to have said that the command to the angels to prostrate before Adam was a way for God to teach the angels that He is completely independent of their worship of Him. Had their worship added but a grain’s weight to His might, he would not have commanded them to turn to Adam. In the commentary on Q7:11 Abū Ḥafṣ stresses that the prostration of the angels and all of creation does not add anything to the might of God, “because He is

Almighty before He created them, Almighty after He makes them vanish, and Almighty when he resurrects them.”437 An anonymous quote makes clear that the prostration before

Adam was an act of obedience to God for the angels, and a mere greeting to Adam.438 Several authorities quoted by al-Sulamī take issue with Satan using the pronoun “I” (anā khayrun minhu; Q7:12).439 The reason for the curse of Satan is the use of this pronoun; even if he had left away khayrun minhu and only said anā, it would still have ruined him. Subsequently it is

436 Ibid., I, 223-25.

437 Ibid., I, 221.

438 Ibid., I, 221.

439 This is a recurring theme in Sufi literature. See Awn, Satan’s Tragedy, 90-6.

164 said that he was cursed for not admitting his sin to himself, not repenting, not blaming himself, not considering repentance necessary, and despairing of God’s mercy. Satan thus becomes a negative example prominent in Sufi literature for the danger of putting oneself in the center, giving any value to one’s ego, and being too proud to recognize one’s sins and repent. Adam, on the other hand, is a positive example of proper behavior towards God for the Sufi: he admits his sin to himself, regrets it, considers repentance necessary, blames himself, and does not despair of God’s mercy.440 Adam is for these reasons considered different from Iblīs, although they both transgressed against God’s command.441

6 Teaching good manners: the banishment in al-Qushayrī

Al-Qushayrī does not show himself to be a man of grand narratives and themes in his treatment of the story of Adam. His commentary being intended as a mode of instruction for his direct pupils, he mainly takes the verses on Adam as a reason to speak about aspects of good manners (adab) and controlling one’s desires. A primary motive al-Qushayrī mentions for the banishment of Satan is a lack of good manners (sūʾ al-adab) in the nearness of God.442 His arrogance and haughtiness while being on the carpet of nearness (bisāṭ al- qurb) necessitated his removal from Paradise. Arrogance is a challenge of God’s Lordship

(rubūbiyya) by claiming a similar place for oneself.443 This goes for Adam as well. He was in

440 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 221-22.

441 Ibid., I, 224.

442 Exegetes differ on the banishment of Satan, specifically on whether it was from Paradise or from heaven. The text of the Qurʾān is ambiguous and both are mentioned in conventional tafsīr of Q7:13.

Sunnis generally consider it to be from Paradise, Muʿtazilites from heaven. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Al-

Tafsīr al-kabīr (Beirut: Dār iḥyāʾ al-turāth al-ʿarabī, 2008), V, 210.

443 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, I, 522.

165 the spring of nearness (ʿayn al-qurba) when he showed improper manners, which necessitated his banishment.444

In a similar vein, Adam’s eating from the tree mainly serves al-Qushayrī to teach something about humankind’s inclination to sin. Although everything in the Garden was generally allowed for Adam, he did not stretch out his hand to it, and instead patiently waited for the one tree that was forbidden for him. Such, claims al-Qushayrī, is the nature of humankind.445 However, despite this inclination to sin man is still more elevated in rank than the angels, he holds. Although the angels are superior in acts of obedience, man is superior in knowledge, and knowledge is more elevated than actions.446 When Adam wanted to eat from the tree in order to become like the angels (Q7:20) it was not because he envied a supposed higher position of the angels, but because Adam wanted to be without desires like the angels. The desire to be immortal like the angels was a mistake that caused fear, trial and degeneration, because the cause of every tribulation is desire. Al-Qushayrī takes this example as a mode of instruction: if even in the everlasting abode (dār al-khulūd) desire causes so much trouble, then one must certainly protect oneself from desire in the ephemeral abode (dār al-fanāʾ).447

Al-Qushayrī is also concerned with the pre-ordained nature of Adam’s act. The banishment of Adam was a necessity to make him a vicegerent (khalīfa) on earth, as God had announced to the angels (Q2:30).448 Although it was Satan who enticed Adam and Eve to slip,

444 Ibid., I, 83.

445 Ibid., I, 80.

446 Ibid., I, 75.

447 Ibid., I, 524.

448 Ibid., I, 80. This idea can also be found in conventional commentaries from al-Qushayrī’s milieu.

Al-Thaʿlabī quotes “one of the wise” (ḥukamāʾ) to have said that “God had made Adam leave the

Garden already before He made him enter it, by His saying: I shall make a vicegerent on earth. Then his

166 it was in reality God’s omnipotence (qudra) that caused it.449 When God made Adam enter the Garden, He also decreed that the tree of tribulation would be there. Had the decree not already preceded the act of Adam, he argues, the tree would have lost its bloom and green, and Adam would not have reached to the leaves. Had the divine decree been such that the tree had grown longer to the extent that his hands could not have reached it, all the difficulties that befell them would not have happened. What Adam did was bound to happen because God decreed it, and even his firm will could not do anything against it: “and no firm will was stronger than his firm will, but the omnipotence (qudra) [of God] cannot be surpassed, and the decree (ḥukm) cannot be opposed.”450

Also al-Qushayrī has the tendency to belittle Adam’s sin. The result of the sin is not necessarily bad. Apparently God made them leave their elevated rank, but for God they only increased in rank and degree.451 Iblīs is cursed after being sent down and does not recover from his degradation, while Adam is granted mercy and keeps his elevated rank.452 Al-

Qushayrī is the first (and only) author until now who explicitly mentions Adam’s spouse as the cause for the tribulation (fitna). However, he does not specify in which way this is so.453

It is interesting to note that these particular passages from al-Qushayrī hardly incorporate the material cited by al-Sulamī.454 He does quote some anonymous authorities, departure from the Garden by his sin shows that it was by fate (qaḍāʾ) and decree (qadr) of God.” Al-

Thaʿlabī, Kashf, I, 176-77.

449 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, I, 81.

450 Ibid., I, 80.

451 Ibid., I, 81.

452 Ibid., I, 527.

453 Ibid., I, 523.

454 Martin Nguyen holds that the influence of al-Sulamī on Qushayrī’s commentary is overstated by

Suleyman Ateş, and that he depended much more on other contemporary non-Sufi commentaries.

For a detailed case study of al-Qushayrī’s dependence on other commentaries and his manner of

167 but this material is from another unclear source. On the reason why he has not included the sayings from al-Sulamī’s commentary while these were available to him, we can only speculate. It might be that these sayings went too far beyond the boundaries of the apparent meaning of the Qurʾānic text for al-Qushayrī, and that he was not as fond of the themes of nearness and vision that dominate al-Sulamī’s material.

7 Elevation through degradation: the banishment in Maybudī

Maybudī is the first commentator who, besides quoting earlier authorities, offers quite rich and varied own material on Adam. The banishment of Adam as perceived by Maybudī is very similar to his contemporary al-Samʿāni.455 According to Annabel Keeler, for Maybudī the significance of the creation and banishment of Adam primarily lies in love and experiential knowledge (maʿrifa). This argument entails the same inevitability of God’s decree that we witnessed earlier in the work of Sahl al-Tustarī: Adam had to sin and leave

Paradise so that the love and mercy of God could fully manifest, and Adam could fully bring about the love of God for which he was destined. The suffering of Adam in this-worldly life is necessary to attain love: without suffering true love is not possible. Suffering the pain of

quotation see Martin Nguyen, “Letter by Letter: Tracing the Textual Genealogy of a Sufi Tafsīr,” in

Aims, Methods and Contexts of Qur’anic Exegesis, ed. Karen Bauer (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2013), 217-40.

455 It would be worthwhile to take up the task of tracing the intertextuality between these two sources, and thus analyze the incorporation of non-tafsīr literature in Maybudī’s commentary. In the preface to his latest study Divine Love William Chittick mentions to have investigated the matter, without further elaborating on the textual evidence. His conclusion is that Maybudī knew Samʿānī’s treatise, and that it is clear that he incorporated passages of the treatise in his commentary from

Surah 17 onwards without citing the source. Chittick, Divine Love, xviii-ix.

168 love is a way to reach chivalry (jawānmardī). Also, it is a way for humankind to realize its own weakness and dependence on God.456

This theme of love and mercy dominates Maybudī’s discussion of the creation of

Adam. While God created heaven, earth and inanimate beings to manifest His power, the angels and jinn to instill awe, He created Adam and humankind (the Adamites) to manifest

His forgiveness and mercy. This is the big difference between the angels and humankind.

While the angels are only capable of obedience, praising and hallowing, Adam brings something extra: the capability of love, affection and companionship.457 Where the themes of passionate love (ʿishq), passionate longing (shawq) and friendship (dūstī) show up, the theme of the vision of God is never far away.458 For Maybudī, in pre-eternity on the Day of the Covenant (rūz-i alast) the seed of this love was sown, by the vision of God. As Keeler states:

It was the moment when humanity was able to see God as well as hearing Him and, since vision is the mainspring of love, it was the moment when the seed of human love for God was sown. (…) In this world, the spiritual vocation of the human being can be understood as the fulfilment of the pact agreed in pre-eternity with God; it is to return to that state of being with Him, cut off from all other.459

456 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 132-39.

457 Maybudī, Kashf, III, 570-71.

458 Naṣr Allāh Pūrjavādī has convincingly shown how in Sufi thought the theme of vision is intimately connected with the themes of passionate longing (shawq) and passionate love (ʿishq). It is the vision of God that is passionately longed for and that is loved. Naṣr Allāh Pūrjavādī, Ruʾyat-i māh dar āsmān: bar-rasī-yi tārīkhī-yi masʾala-i liqāʾ Allāh dar kalām wa taṣawwuf (Tehran: Markaz-i Nashr-i

Dānishgāhī, 1996), 185-88.

459 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 139.

169 Maybudī shows a positive attitude towards the banishment of Adam and this- worldly life, and sees it as an event that completes and elevates Adam, rather than degrading him. He quotes a question posed to ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī (consequently addressed as pīr-i ṭarīqat), whether Adam was more complete in Paradise or in this world. The answer of al-Anṣārī is that Adam was more complete in this world, because there he was confronted with passionate love (ʿishq). One should not, Maybudī quotes his teacher al-Anṣārī, make the mistake to think that the banishment of Adam from Paradise was because of his lowliness.

On the contrary, it was because of his high aspiration (ʿulū-y himmat). Although Maybudī does not state it so explicitly, it is my impression from the context of the statement that he considers this ‘high aspiration’ to be Adam’s quest to fulfill his passionate love for God through seeing the beauty of God. In Paradise, so the quote continues, the creditor of passionate love (mutaqāḍī-y ʿishq) came to Adam and rhetorically told him: “The beauty of meaning (jamāl-i maʿnā) has been unveiled, and you stay in the bliss of the abode of peace?”460 An infinite beauty was then unveiled to Adam that Maybudī describes as more beautiful than the eight Paradises and all in it. Although this beauty is not specified, this is most probably an allusion to the unveiling of the beauty of God: a beatific vision that evokes a passionate longing. After that the command came to leave Paradise. Paradise is the abode of peace (dār al-salām) and thus not a suitable place for a passionate lover: passion is in need of tribulation.461 This is the reverse of the motive that we witnessed in the tafsīr of al-Sulamī.

Where the likes of Jaʿfar and Ibn ʿAṭāʾ seek the reason for the banishment in turning away from the vision of God towards the created, for Maybudī it is exactly the vision of God’s beauty that necessitates the banishment.

When one shows friendship in this-worldly life, says Maybudī through the words of al-Anṣārī, one will be rewarded with the vision in the hereafter: “The drinker of the wine of

460 Maybudī, Kashf, I, 162.

461 Ibid., I, 162.

170 friendship (sharāb-i dūstī) is promised the vision (dīdār). Whoever is truthful, attains what he wishes.”462 Maybudī considers the vision of God in the hereafter to be the ultimate outcome of the sojourn in this-worldly life for Adam. Whilst in this world, man can compensate for the lack of this vision by remembrance (dhikr) of God:

His impudence and nearness reached the point that, when He commanded him to travel from Paradise to the earth, he said, “O Lord, travelers do not go without provision. What will You give us on this path as our provision?” He said, “O Adam, your provision in that land of exile will be the remembrance of Me. After that, on that day of your return, your vision of Me is promised.463

This confirms Keeler’s view that the main interpretation of Adam’s banishment is rooted in love mysticism: Adam becomes a more complete human by his sojourn in this- worldly life, because its tribulations lead to a more complete love from and for God and, ultimately, a return to the vision of His beauty, that first engendered this passionate love and longing.464 The lack of vision in this-worldly life is not a punishment or deprivation.

Rather, it is something that makes Adam a more complete human, due to the suffering and longing that it causes.

Maybudī distinguishes between two existences of Adam (Ādam-rā dū wujūd būd): firstly the Adam of this world and secondly the Adam of Paradise. Adam is banished from

Paradise, only to return in victory: “Suffer a bit of trouble, then in a few days take the

462 Ibid., III, 573

463 Ibid., I, 163. Note the relation with Eliade’s theory of mystical experience as a recapturing of the paradisiacal state. Man is no longer in Paradise and capable of seeing God. However, dhikr consists a substitute to survive the time until the paradisiacal state of vision is restored. Eliade, “Yearning for

Paradise.”

464 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 136-37.

171 treasure.”465 When Adam was commanded to leave Paradise and go into this world, he had to leave behind his honorary possessions to travel the “road of passionate love” (rāh-i ʿishq).

However, upon his return he will have much more honor. The angels will stand in awe of him and remember how he left, and how much more honored he returned. Maybudī, like

Sahl al-Tustarī, likens Adam’s banishment from Paradise to the forced migration of

Muḥammad to Medina. He fled alone and abased, but returned victoriously to Mecca with a complete army.466 In sum, this-worldly life is an enriching experience. It is something humankind has to go through to return to God in a better state.

8 The banishment in al-Daylamī

In the commentary of al-Daylamī there is not a very prominent place for Adam. The crucial passages in al-Baqara (Q2:30-38), al-Aʿrāf (Q7:11-25) and Ṭāhā (Q20:115-123) hardly provoke reaction or reflection in his commentary. Al-Daylamī does not bother to give explanations for the deeper reasons for the creation of Adam, the significance of his sin or his banishment. He mainly highlights the idea that God is not in need of the prostration of anything to Him, and that the prostration of creatures only serves their own interest. The angels are commanded to prostrate before Adam, because he is created in the image of

God.467 Satan’s refusal to prostrate stems from his wrong understanding of dignity: he thinks dignity is something fundamental that simply belongs to him, not something related to

God-wariness (taqwā) as the Qurʾān teaches (Q49:13). Al-Daylami also deems it important to

465 Maybudī, Kashf, VI, 190.

466 Ibid., VI, 190-91.

467 Al-Daylamī mentions that he treats the issue of Adam being created in the form/image of God in detail in his work ʿUyūn al-maʿārif.

172 point out that the prostration of the angels took place after the formation of all the offspring of Adam in his loins, and their testimony that God is indeed their Lord (Q7:172).468

9 The banishment in Rūzbihān

Rūzbihān is a challenging author to deal with. The difficulty of his writings is widely recognized, and may be one of the reasons why he never really earned a well-established place within the later Sufi tradition.469 At first sight his ideas appear articulated intuitively and not always consistent. Of all authors under scrutiny Rūzbihān has the most to say on

Adam, and will thus be treated a bit more extensively. In what follows I have tried to reconstruct several snippets from his commentary into a more or less chronological narrative of the story of Adam, from his creation to the banishment from Paradise.

9.1 The creation of Adam and the conference of the angels

Rūzbihān mentions several motivations of God for the creation of Adam. Most of them contain aspects of both anthropology and angelology. These narratives serve to define the unique characteristics of man and angels and the hierarchy between them, mainly through the themes of experiential knowledge (maʿrifa), love and vision. Firstly, Rūzbihān states, the angels worshipped God ignorantly. Through their worship alone they were not capable to

468 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” 17-8, 101.

469 Carl Ernst, who himself calls Rūzbihān’s works “at times admittedly ... convoluted and obscure,” quotes prominent figures as Jāmī (“he has sayings that have poured forth from him in the state of overpowering and ecstasy, which not everyone can understand”) and Dārā Shikūh (“fatiguing”) to affirm this. Carl W. Ernst, “The Symbolism of Birds and Flight in the Writings of Rūzbihān Baqlī,” in

The Heritage of Sufism, Volume II: The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism, ed. Leonard Lewisohn (Oxford:

Oneworld, 1992), 355-56.

173 come to true experiential knowledge of God. Being turned away by God “from the gate of

Lordship (bāb al-rubūbiyya) by […] the attacks of [His] might (saṭwāt al-ʿizza) upon them” they were incapable to grasp divine reality (idrāk al-ḥaqīqa), and understanding of Lordship was unattainable for them. He thus brought them Adam so that they could acquire knowledge through him, as well as to teach them good manners in servitude. The angels may have preceded Adam in worship, he states, but Adam was their master in experiential knowledge, since his knowledge was imparted directly from God (al-ʿulūm al-laduniyya).470 This implies a unique characteristic of humankind that makes them superior over the angels: the capability to obtain experiential knowledge of God’s Lordship. God has given knowledge of divine attributes only to man: “He blew a spirit into his spirit, which is the knowledge of the attributes… Through these attributes he has precedence over the noble, dutiful angels.”471

Secondly, at the conference of the angels God noticed that the angels did not love

Him properly, focused as they were on worshipping Him. While God created angels for the sake of worship, He created Adam for the sake of love.472 This love was mutual: God wanted a beautiful witness (shāhid jamīl) in the world that He Himself could love. He therefore created

Adam with His hand, and ‘clothed’ him with one of His attributes. He loved him by His attributes for the sake of His attributes.473 This obscure formulation might be explained with some help from Rūzbihān’s treatise on love, ʿAbhar al-ʿāshiqīn. In it Rūzbihān equates God

470 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, I, 40.

471 Ibid., I, 143; Kazuyo Murata, “God is Beautiful and He Loves Beauty: Ruzbihan Baqli’s Sufi

Metaphysics of Beauty” (Yale University PhD Dissertation, 2012), 158.

472 Although Rūzbihān does not quote it explicitly in this context, this seems to draw on the motive of the ḥadīth qudsī of the ‘hidden treasure’ that figures so prominently in Sufi literature: “I was a hidden treasure that was not known, so I wanted to be known. So I created the creatures and I made

Myself known to them, and thus they came to know Me.” Cf. Chittick, Divine Love, 18-9.

473 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, I, 40.

174 with love, and states that passionate love (ʿishq) is an attribute of His.474 So when a human feels love for God, this is because God has ‘clothed’ this human with His attribute of love.

The attribute in which God clothes Adam could thus well be the attribute of love.

Thirdly, the angels desired to see God. Therefore God gave them Adam, so that they would be able to see Him through him:

God knew their incapability of looking at Him, so He made Adam for them to look at him, because God created him with His hand, and formed him with His form, and put a reflection of His spirit in him.475 When they looked into it, God manifested Himself to them.476

Like Maybudī, Rūzbihān intertwines the theme of passionate love and longing with the theme of the vision of God. Carl Ernst has pointed out how Rūzbihān in ʿAbhar al-ʿāshiqīn connects the witnessing and vision of God with different stages of love. On one of the stages the lover is transformed into a mirror of God. When one looks at a lover, one sees God

474 Rūzbihān Baqlī Shīrāzī, Kitāb ʿabhar al-ʿāshiqīn, eds. Henry Corbin and Muḥammad Muʿīn (Tehran:

Institut Français d’Iranologie de Téhéran, 1968), 139; Carl Ernst, “The stages of Love in Early Persian

Sufism, from Rābiʿa to Rūzbihān,” in The Heritage of Sufism, Volume I: Classical Persian Sufism from its

Origins to Rumi (700-1300), ed. Leonard Lewisohn (Oxford: Oneworld, 1992), 452-53.

475 This is a reference to a well-attested ḥadīth that states that “God created Adam in his/His image/form (ʿalā ṣūratihi).” See Christopher Melchert, “God created Adam in His Image,” JQS 13, no. 1

(2011): 113-24. Cf. William Montgomery Watt, “Created in His Image,” Transactions of the Glasgow

University Oriental Society 18 (1961): 38-49; Kister, “Ādam,” 137-38. Elliot R. Wolfson has noted a similar idea in Jewish mediaeval mysticism, and states that “we can speak of the convergence of anthropomorphism and theomorphism in the visionary experience: to attribute human form to God is to attribute divine forms to humans.” Wolfson, Speculum, 69.

476 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, I, 40-1.

175 reflected in him and becomes a lover oneself.477 This concept also appears in Rūzbihān’s commentary. When the angels prostrated to Adam, he states, some of the angels reached the station of love and passionate love (maqām al-maḥabba wa’l-ʿishq), as a consequence of which God manifested Himself to them through His reflection in the face of Adam.478 The human face, in this case Adam’s, becomes a mirror of God.479 The indirectness of this manifestation was a necessity, because created beings are not capable of having a pure and unmediated vision of God: “had the lights of His attributes and His essence been exposed to them unadulterated (ṣirfan), they would burn in the first bit that appears from the light of

Godliness (ulūhiyya).”480

By this vision of Him through Adam, God also intended to teach the angels a lesson in humility. Rūzbihān points out that when God created Adam the angels had a bad opinion of him and showed poor manners towards him, while they praised themselves.481 Despite

God calling him vicegerent (khalīfa), which according to Rūzbihān means he will not deal unjustly and not deviate, they still assumed that he would shed blood and misbehave.

Rūzbihān interprets this as an act of disobedience against God by the angels. When God removed the ‘veil of sanctity’ (niqāb al-quds) from the face of Adam and the light of his beauty spread, the angels became ashamed of their allegations, realized their ignorance and

477 Ernst, “Stages of Love,” 452-53.

478 Note the contradiction with Rūzbihān’s earlier statement that the angels were created for worship only, and were incapable of loving God properly.

479 This idea may itself be a reflection of the controversial practice of some Sufis of gazing at the beautiful face of young boys, believed to reflect the beauty of God. See Lloyd Ridgeon, “The

Controversy of Shaykh Awḥad al-Dīn Kirmānī and Handsome, Moon-Faced Youths: A Case Study of

Shāhid-Bāzī in Medieval Sufism,” JSS 1 (2012): 3-30; Bell, Love Theory, 139-44.

480 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, I, 418.

481 Q2:30.

176 proclaimed: Glory to You, we have no knowledge except for what You have taught us (Q2:32).482 God clothed the angels in the cloth of worship (libās al-ʿubūdiyya), while Adam was clothed in the cloth of vision (libās al-ruʾya). God thus showed him to the angels “so they saw him clothed in the cloth of God,” and became embarrassed with how astonished they were over their own deficient worship. The command to prostrate to Adam was a lesson that their worship does not reach the level of understanding of Lordship (rubūbiyya). The angels saw the secret

(sirr) of God in Adam, and saw that the ‘cloth’ of God was upon him, and that he was dyed with the ‘color’ of God.483 Iblīs did not prostrate because he did not see what was unveiled to them.484 He was veiled from God’s beauty (jamāl) and majesty (jalāl) because he was only looking to himself. He did not belong to the “people of witnessing of the attributes (ahl shuhūd al-ṣifāt) and seeing of the majesty of the essence (ruʾyat jalāl al-dhāt).”485 He claimed not to prostrate because he did not want to look at anything but God. He failed to realize that Adam at that moment was like the Kaaba. Just as prostrating to the Kaaba, a created object, in reality is a prostration to God, prostrating to Adam is just a symbolic means to

482 Q2:32; Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, I, 41.

483 Being dyed with the ‘color’ of God is a reference to ṣibghat Allāh mentioned in Q2:138.

484 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, I, 43. Rūzbihān presents a similar argument in his Sharḥ-i shaṭḥiyāt. Iblīs failed to see

God in Adam, because he did not look at Adam with the eyes of a true monotheist. He claimed to have lost the light of his eyes when he saw other than God, not realizing that there is no other than

God: “Er hat das Nichtgöttliche von sich gewiesen, da er (in Adam) das Nichtgöttliche sah. Aber da war kein Nichtgöttliches … Durch den Blick auf Adam wurde er von der Zweitlosigkeit des

Zweitlosen (fardānīyat-i Fard) abgesperrt. Wenn nicht, wie sollte denn einer, der den Zweitlosen sucht, durch Adam und die Welt abgelenkt werden? Gott hat ihn durch Adam abgesperrt. Da er in

Adam Adam sah, wurde er durch sein Ich von Adam abgesperrt, damit er die Wirklichkeit Adams nicht sähe.” Rūzbihān al-Baqlī, Sharḥ-i shaṭḥiyāt (Tehran: Institut Français d’Iranologie de Téhéran,

1981), 513-15; translation from Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 45.

485 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, I, 419.

177 prostrate to God. Because of his refusal to follow God’s command his prostration was in reality to himself.486

9.2 The dwelling in Paradise and the ‘slip’

Rūzbihān states that before Adam existed, even before anything existed, God had already decreed that Adam was chosen and elected (muṣṭafā mujtabā) for prophethood, for knowledge of God’s names, and for experiential knowledge of God through these names. It was by these names that Adam would be led to His characteristic (naʿt), through His characteristic to His attribute (ṣifa), and through His attribute to the ultimate vision of His essence (ruʾyat dhātihi).487 This aspect of Adam being chosen (iṣṭifāʾiyya) appears to be crucial in one of the narratives of the banishment that Rūzbihān offers: leaving Paradise is a necessity to fulfill exactly the aspect of Adam being chosen for these things in pre-eternity.

In the commentaries of Rūzbihān there are two banishments of Adam: the first is a banishment from the nearness of God to Paradise, the second from Paradise to this world.

The command of God to Adam and his spouse to live in the Garden (Q2:35) Rūzbihān firstly interprets as being in proximity (jiwār) to God and not to be separated from Him. Only a few lines after that he seemingly contradicts this earlier interpretation by opposing proximity

(jiwār) to God to dwelling in the Garden: before they were placed in the Garden they were in the proximity of God. By placing them in the Garden, God removed them from this proximity to Him. He states that God actually wanted Adam and his spouse to sin, without specifying why, or of what exactly the sin consisted. He therefore put them in charge of themselves (wakkalahumā ilā anfusihimā) and removed them from his proximity (jiwār) by placing them in the Garden, so that the sin could take place. God wanted to set apart the eternal (qadīm) from the created (ḥadthān), and therefore made them take their refuge in

486 Ballanfat, Quatre traités, 172-73. Cf. Awn, Satan’s Tragedy, 124-29; Ridgeon, “Sufi Evil,” 114.

487 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, II, 503-04.

178 eating from the fruits of the trees of Paradise. Since Adam and his spouse were ‘children of time’ (ṭiflā al-zamān), that is, part of the created realm and not divine, they were not entitled to reside in the realm of might of the Merciful (jabarūt al-raḥmān).488 He quotes an earlier authority to support this idea: “Living in the Garden is estrangement from God. He brought the created back to the created, and He brought imperfection back to imperfection, to separate the pre-eternal (azal) from the created (ḥawādith).”489

Before entering the Garden Adam was afraid in his inmost self (sirr) that he would be distracted from the delights of witnessing God (ladhāʾidh mushāhadatihi) and communion

(wiṣāl) with God, and to be veiled from the spirit of intimacy (rūḥ al-uns) and from looking at the beauty of sanctity (jamāl al-quds). God therefore comforted him by stating that you shall not be hungry therein, and not naked (Q20:118). Rūzbihān interprets this to mean that Adam would not be hungry in the sense of longing to witnessing God (mushāhada), because also in the Garden he would “drown in the sea of communion with Us,” and that he would not be naked from “the cloth of the light of electedness” (libās anwār al-iṣṭifāʾiyya). God promises

Adam that he will forever be clothed in the cloth of “chosenness” (kiswat al-ijtibāʾiyya), that he shall not be thirsty of the water of nearness (zulfa), that he will be in communion (waṣla) and will not become burned in the heat of the sun of separation (firāq).490

Rūzbihān offers several explanations for the special significance of the tree, the reason of the prohibition of the tree for Adam, and his attraction to it. More than once he states that God hid the secrets of Lordship (asrār al-rubūbiyya) in the tree. He forbade Adam and Eve to approach it, so that they would not be banished from Paradise and in

488 Carl Ernst defines Rūzbihān’s concept of jabarūt as “locus for experiencing the wrathful and powerful manifestations of the Attributes of majesty.” Ernst, Ruzbihan, 31.

489 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, I, 44.

490 Ibid., II, 504-05.

179 consequence, burdened with ordinary human life (ʿaysh al-insāniyya).491 This prohibition had the opposite effect of exciting them, so they approached it. When they approached it, God clothed the tree with the lights of sanctity (anwār al-quds) and He manifested Himself to them through the tree. This manifestation caused them to fall into passionate love (ʿishq) for the tree, which made them completely forget the prohibition to approach it.492 God clothed the forbidden tree with the lights of His splendor (bahāʾ) and made Adam see that lordly light and splendor. He commanded him to avoid the tree, while placing love of being near to it in his heart as well, by manifesting the reflection of His majesty (jalāl) through it to Adam. This love of being near to it won over the command to avoid it, and Adam “fell into the excitement of longing for it and the hazard of the delight of the splendor of witnessing it.”493 It had now become easy for Satan to deceive them, because they were passionate lovers. In his longing for the face of his passionately beloved (maʿshūq), says

Rūzbihān, a passionate lover (ʿāshiq) is willing to listen to “the speech of every pious and insolent so that they perhaps come somewhat close to their beloved.”494

When they ate from the tree, they learned the knowledge of “the inmost of the inmost secrets” (sirr al-asrār) and “the subtlety of the divine decrees” (laṭīf al-aqdār). As a consequence the Garden filled up with the heaviness of the lights of the inmost secrets

(anwār al-asrār) and the gravity of the strength of Lordship (rubūbiyya). They were considered transgressors (Q2:35) because they acquired knowledge of the inmost secrets of

Godliness (asrār al-ulūhiyya). He quotes “one of the immoderates” (musrifīn) to have said:

“That tree is the tree of knowledge of fate (qaḍāʾ) and divine decree (qadr). Who has knowledge [of that], has knowledge of what God has hidden in it, [and] has arrived at the

491 Ibid., I, 44-5.

492 Ibid., I, 45.

493 Ibid., II, 504.

494 Ibid., I, 424.

180 might of the kingdom (ʿizz al-mulk) and of immortality (khuld) by the description of Lordship

(naʿt al-rubūbiyya) and independence (ḥurriyya).”495

When ‘the cursed one’ (al-malʿūn: Satan) said to Adam and Eve Shall I point you to the tree of immortality and a power that does not vanish (Q20:120) Satan was well aware that it indeed was the tree of immortality and power (shajarat al-khuld wa’l-mulk) and that it was forbidden to them. However, he wanted the tree to be touched, to challenge Lordship

(rubūbiyya) by its strength. He grieved because he himself did not have the ability to do so, and saw the treasures of the unseen being filled in it in the form of fruits. Therefore he pointed Adam to it, so that at least someone of the created beings would enjoy this. But he mixed his will (irāda) with envy of Adam. Satan wanted them to be shown those secrets

(asrār) that will make the one who knows them naked and intoxicated.496

Ultimately it was God who wanted part of His secrets to be shown to Adam. He thus gave Iblīs the ability to whisper to Adam, which caused this secret to be unveiled to him.

The rank of Adam was elevated by his newly gained knowledge, while Iblīs was damaged by it. Iblīs thus did not reach what he wanted: he wished for Adam to fall from his rank, but instead Adam’s rank was elevated and his honor was increased. He himself fell from his rank because of his envy of Adam, and became forever rejected (maṭrūd al-abad), while

Adam became forever accepted (maqbūl al-azal wa’l-abad).497 When Satan seduced Adam to eat from the tree, he thought that he had put Adam in “the haughtiness of eternal separation” (al-firqa al-abadiyya). He did not realize that Adam’s act was the cause for the exact opposite, eternal communion (al-waṣla al-abadiyya), and that the tree in reality was the tree of eternity (shajarat al-khuld), because the tree was clothed with the lights of power

495 Ibid., I, 422.

496 Ibid., I, 422-23.

497 Ibid., I, 423.

181 (anwār al-sulṭāniyya) and the secrets of divinity (asrār al-rabbāniyya).498 For the idea that

Adam actually is elevated by eating from the tree Rūzbihān finds support in the earlier authority of Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī (d. 215/830), whom he quotes to have said:

Satan whispered to them because he wanted evil for them. That was the cause for the elevation of Adam and him reaching the highest rank. Adam had never done an act more complete than the sin (khaṭīʾa) which disciplined him and stationed him on the station of realities (maqām al-ḥaqāʾiq). What might have pervaded his inmost self (sirr) from the prostration of the angels to him fell off him, and made him return to the blessing of the beginning in being created by the hand until he returned to his Lord, by His saying: {We have wronged ourselves}.499

In the Qurʾān it is stated that when Adam and his spouse both ate from the tree, their private parts became apparent to them (Q20:121). According to Rūzbihān this means that their inmost selves (asrār) were unveiled to them after eating from the tree, which made them obtain the divine secrets (al-asrār al-ulūhiyya). It was Satan, aiming for the opposite, who guided them to this elevated state. To elucidate this Rūzbihān gives the comparison of a snake that walks towards a treasure. Behind him is a human who tries to kill it. When he kills the snake, he finds the treasure, thus reaching success through his enemy. This, says

Rūzbihān, is similar to the case of Adam and ‘the cursed one’ (al-malʿūn; Satan): “he guided him to one of the treasures of Lordship (rubūbiyya), his target was enmity and deviation, and Adam attained post-eternal chosenness (al-ijtibāʾiyya al-abadiyya) after pre-eternal electedness (al-iṣṭifāʾiyya al-azaliyya), while the cursed one reached pre- and post-eternal cursedness (al-laʿna al-azaliyya al-abadiyya).”500

498 Ibid., II, 506.

499 Ibid., I, 423.

500 Ibid., II, 506.

182 Rūzbihān explicitly links God’s manifestation through the tree to Adam to another story of divine manifestation to a prophet through a tree: the manifestation to Moses through a burning bush. In one instance when he mentions the manifestation to Adam and

Eve, he explicitly makes the comparison: “and God manifested Himself to them from the tree, as He manifested Himself from the tree of Moses to Moses.”501 He criticizes people who differentiate between both trees for the wrong reasons. Some, he criticizes, would state that at the tree of Adam a test and tribulation occurred, while at the tree of Moses the way was opened for his messengership and prophethood. Rūzbihān holds that one would never make such a statement if one knew the true reality (ḥaqīqa) of the tree of Adam. The tree, he states, is an allusion to the tree of Lordship (rubūbiyya), and therefore it was forbidden to

Adam. When Adam was attributed with the attributes of God, he wanted a sample of their reality. God denied him this though, saying: “This is something that is not for you. It is forbidden for the created (ḥadathiyya).” His pre-eternity (azaliyya) became apparent from the tree, which intoxicated Adam and seduced him to eat from it. He ate the grain of

Lordship (rubūbiyya), which made his state (ḥāl) in the presence (ḥaḍra) of God so enormous that the Garden did not have the capacity to contain him. Therefore he was sent down from it to this world, the “treasure-trove of the passionate lovers” (maʿdin al-ʿushshāq).502

9.3 The exile from Paradise and the sojourn in this-worldly life

Rūzbihān states that the provision for a time promised to Adam and his spouse in this world in Q2:36 has the meaning of “the lights of the manifestation of God (anwār tajallī al-ḥaqq) thronging to their hearts, to comfort them for the lack of the witnessing (fuqdān al- mushāhada).”503 By abandoning Paradise they lost the witnessing of God. As a compensation

501 Ibid., I, 44.

502 Ibid., III, 87.

503 Ibid., I, 45.

183 for that loss they can receive some of the light from the manifestation (tajallī) of God upon their hearts in this-worldly existence.504

In his commentary on Q20:117, Let him [Satan] not remove you from the Garden so that you suffer, he lets God say that His reprimand consists of hunger, thirst and nakedness, because that is what the lower self (nafs) truly fears. If they eat from the tree, God will tire them in this-worldly life by the need to look after food, drink, clothing, agriculture etc., while “these punishments do not exist close and near to Me.”505 It is a kindness and generosity from God that He punishes Adam in this world (dunyā) for a sin that he committed in His presence (ḥaḍra), while his fellow human beings are punished in the otherworld (ākhira) for the sins they commit in this world. This is something specifically for

Adam, because the this-worldly punishment is easier. It is only because God tested Adam with eating from the tree that the secrets of the knowledge of realities of His subjugation

(ḥaqāʾiq qahramānihi) are attainable for the people of experiential knowledge (ahl al-maʿārif) from among the trustworthy (ṣiddīqīn).506

9.4 Conclusion

So, what is the point that Rūzbihān wants to make in regard to Adam’s banishment? It is hard to find a structured argument, or an overarching theme in his seemingly loose and spontaneous statements. Although vision is not the overarching theme in Rūzbihān’s narrative of the banishment, it is a theme that is constantly present in the background, linked with the more strongly present themes of love and experiential knowledge. It seems that Rūzbihān, unlike Maybudī and Samʿānī, is not preoccupied with deeper questions of theology and theodicy attached to the banishment of Adam. Although he does state that

504 Ibid., I, 45.

505 Ibid., II, 505.

506 Ibid., II, 505.

184 God wanted Adam to sin, and that the banishment of Adam was a way to fulfill the electedness (iṣtifāʾiyya) of Adam, he does not really specify why the banishment from

Paradise was a prerequisite for its fulfillment.

Rūzbihān mostly presents his own independent thought in these passages on Adam.

Material from al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī is quoted from time to time, but does not play a significant role in the ideas he himself poses. He mainly quotes them after having given his own interpretation, as is his habit in most of his work.507

10 Conclusion

Let us now return to the two central questions that we posed in our introduction. Have we found an answer to the question why Adam ‘had’ to descend in the thought of our authors, how they placed this descent within God’s larger (eschatological) plan with humankind, and how they dealt with questions of predestination and theodicy related to it? And, what did our authors exactly hold to be lost by the banishment: of what constitutes the yearning for

Paradise during this-worldly life?

It is somewhat surprising to see the large diversity in approaches to the story of

Adam, and the seeming lack of intertextuality and genealogy between the different commentaries. Although they surely are genealogical in the sense that they all subtly refer back to predecessors and interweave them in their own impressions, they all develop their own thoughts independently from each other. There seemed to be enough space for their own creativity in describing their individual perspectives on the meaning of the Qurʾān.

Maybudī and Rūzbihān have some themes in common, most notably the themes of love and vision, but there is no clear textual lineage between the two, and there is no hint at all that

Rūzbihān felt the need to relate to (or even had knowledge of) the work of Maybudī.

507 Godlas, “Influences,” 87.

185 The one theme that all commentaries in one way or another (have to) deal with is the question of the predetermination of Adam’s transgression. Also here the lack of genealogy and intertextuality is striking. Although quite similar solutions are found to the problem, later commentators hardly feel the need to quote their predecessors on the issue.

When dealing with the issue of ʿiṣma in the commentaries (most notably al-Sulamī and al-

Qushayrī), one may even legitimately ask whether the suggested interpretations are typically ‘Sufi’, or whether they do at all reflect the hermeneutical principles of ishārī tafsīr.

Many ideas correspond almost entirely with ideas propounded in conventional works of tafsīr and Islamic theology. In the case of predestination one extra dimension is added: where conventional explanations only state that Adam’s sin was predestined, some Sufi explanations –most notably Rūzbihān’s- go a step further, and also try to answer the question why God ordained what He ordained. These issues of impeccability and predestination clearly show that the Sufi authors did not compose their work in a vacuum from, or in opposition to, the theological doctrines that were current in their broader environment. They actively made endeavors to understand how the sin of Adam fitted within theological doctrines and sought to explain this by manner of theology themselves, sometimes adding a small typical Sufi twist to their argument.

The biggest difference in themes and style between the commentaries is the theme of love mysticism. This theme is practically absent in the commentaries of al-Sulamī (with the sayings of Jaʿfar as an exception) and al-Qushayrī. It does not play a prominent role in their understanding of the story of Adam and the meaning and purpose of this-worldly life.

For Maybudī and Rūzbihān, on the other hand, it is a core theme for their reading of the

Adam narrative, paired with the vision of God, the fuel of love. It is, I believe, the shift from a more sober zuhd oriented Sufism to a more ecstatic love mysticism that explains the difference between the more negative and more positive approach to the banishment of

Adam.

186 Concerning the question what is lost by Adam’s banishment, one only finds a quite clear answer in the early authorities quoted by al-Sulamī, for whom the loss is the vision and nearness to God, only to be restored in the hereafter. This deprivation is a punishment for Adam’s act, and the loss of it is what makes this-worldly life unpleasant and negative.

Although Maybudī shows a similar topical interest of this-worldly life as a deprivation of vision, one cannot consider it a ‘loss’ in his thought. Rather, the lack of vision is the cause of a passionate longing that makes man unique, and gives his existence a quality that other creatures lack. By losing the vision and going through the torment of being distant and veiled from God in this-worldly life, man truly becomes man and ‘gains’ something rather than losing.

Even if we do not agree with Eliade’s notion that the yearning for and return to

Paradise is a phenomenon shared by all religions, I believe this concept might indeed offer a framework for the understanding of the place of the banishment of Adam in the eschatological imagination of the Islamic love mystics, most notably Jaʿfar, Maybudī and

Rūzbihān. With the banishment of Adam, even when considered an elevating rather than denigrating event, something pivotal was indeed lost: the vision of God, nearness to and communion with Him. The purpose of mystical experience in this-worldly life, then, is to restore this paradisiacal state. In states of ecstasy a glimpse of the nearness, communion and vision of Paradise can be attained, a ‘taste’ of what man experienced before the banishment, and will experience again in the hereafter. This may explain the centrality of the vision (ruʾya) and manifestation (tajallī) of God in most notably Rūzbihān’s mystical thought, a centrality we will further expand in the case studies of the last two chapters.

We conclude this chapter with two quotes that show how the themes discussed in this chapter effect two other prophetic narratives. The first is a passage from Rūzbihān’s

ʿAbhar al-ʿāshiqīn, that hints to a similar scheme as Maybudī of primordial vision, loss of vision and attempts to re-attain it in this-worldly life. Rūzbihān relates how humankind,

187 once in their earthly existence, could only yearn to see God. When speaking of rūz-i alast, the Day of the Covenant, Rūzbihān states:

They asked the Real for beauty, so that gnosis would be perfect. The Real removed the veil of might, and showed them the beauty of majesty’s essence. The spirits of the prophets and saints became intoxicated from the influence of hearing [the divine speech and seeing] the beauty of majesty. They fell in love with the eternal beloved, with no trace of temporality. From that stage, their love began to increase with degrees of divine improvement, because when the holy spirits entered earthly form, from their prior melancholy they all began to say “Show me!”1 They found the locus of delight, so that whatever they saw in this world, they saw all as him.508

The second is a passage from al-Samʿānī’s Rawḥ al-arwāh, also mentioned by Maybudī. It considers the fall of Adam a necessity for the ascension of Muhammad:

It was said to Adam, “Fall down!” It was said to Muṣṭafā, “Ascend!”: “O Adam! Go to the earth so that the world of dust may settle down in the awesome majesty of your sultanate. O Muḥammad! Come up to heaven so that the summit of the spheres may be adorned by the beauty of your contemplation. The secret here is that I said, ‘Fall down!’ to your father so that I could say, ‘Ascend!’ to you.509

In Chapters Five and Six we will analyze these two other prophetic narratives that are related to the themes of nearness to and vision of God: the request of God’s vision by Moses, and the ascension of Muhammad. First, however, we will survey a spectrum of theoretical discussions on the vision of God. This, we think will help us to come to a proper understanding of the modes of vision proposed in these case studies.

508 Rūzbihān, ʿAbhar, 132. Translation from Ernst, “Stages of Love,” 452.

509 Aḥmad al-Samʿānī, Rawḥ al-arwāḥ fī sharḥ asmāʾ al-malik al-fattāḥ, ed. Najīb Māyil Hirawī (Tehran:

Shirkat-i intishārāt-i ʿilmī wa farhangī, 1989), 206. Translation from Chittick, Divine Love, 153. Cf.

Maybudī, Kashf, V, 503; Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 138.

188 4 Excursus: embodying the vision of God in theology and Sufism

1 Introduction

While this study is intended to be on Sufi eschatology in a broader sense, the first two case studies have shown that it is almost inevitable to focus on one dominant aspect of the Sufi eschatological imagination: the vision of God. Although this theme is not equally dominant in all works under discussion -especially al-Qushayrī seems not to be particularly interested in it-, it does stand out as the most significant theme among most authors. It is certainly the most relevant for the theme of boundary crossing. This raises a theoretical challenge to our proposed contextualist approach: it is exactly this theme of vision that is very much favored by those scholars who wished to decontextualize and ‘perennialize’ mysticism. For their approach the theme of vision is paradigmatic for the ‘experiential’ and private experience that, similar to the theme of ‘mystical union’, transcends the particularities of religious traditions and is deemed universal.510

In the context of the issue of the vision of God, the scholar of Jewish mysticism Elliot

R. Wolfson has theoretically elaborated on this contextualist/perennialist debate. One may say that his study is the most prominent study available on seeing God in (Jewish) mysticism to date. He is therefore also worth mentioning in the context of our study.

Although being in favor of a contextualist and constructivist approach, he shuns the ‘hard constructivist’ end of the perennialist/constructivist-continuum and proposes a softer contextualist approach. On the one hand, he confirms that the mystic’s understanding of his vision of God and the way one works towards this vision is determined by his own religious tradition and context, by his “pre-experiential beliefs.”511 On the other hand,

510 Cf. Underhill, Mysticism, 279-97; Wolfson, Speculum, 52.

511 Wolfson, Speculum, 54.

189 borrowing elements from Eliade’s theory of mysticism, he leaves some space for the idea that there may be a shared phenomenal structure among those religious tradition, and that a comparison between different religious traditions is possible along these structural lines despite differences in context. He believes that the category of ‘vision’ may well be such a common structure that enables comparison between different religious and mystical traditions.512 Given the fact that the faculty of vision is a common characteristic of all humans, it is not surprising that ‘vision’ is also a universally recognized common structure of mystical experiences. It is therefore legitimate to compare different traditions, and different modalities of vision within one tradition, along similar structures. This however does not mean that, as perennialists would claim, all these claimed visions are essentially the same, though expressed differently. This approach still leaves space to recognize the particularities of each claimed vision, their rootedness in their specific traditions and even their mediated and genealogical nature: the form of a claimed vision may incorporate elements of claimed visions passed on by one’s predecessor or teacher.

Wolfson proposes the following typology of visions of God, that may be useful to keep in mind for the following three chapters. He firstly stresses that the vision of God that

Jewish mystics sought and claimed to have were never understood to be physical visions within the spatial-temporal world. Rather, it was understood as a contemplative vision.513 I believe the same holds to be true for the vision of God claimed by Islamic mystics. These contemplative visions he divides in two types: introvertive and cognitive. The introvertive kind finds its roots in Neo-Platonism and considers the vision of God to be purely intellectual, beyond image and form, rejecting the senses and sensual imagery to play any

512 Ibid., 52-5.

513 The Arabic mushāhada, that we translate as ‘witnessing’ is often translated as ‘contemplation’ or

‘contemplative vision.’

190 meaningful role in how the vision is experienced and described. 514 The cognitive visions however are considered to be “within the phenomenological parameters of human experience as such.”515 God, according to this type, is perceived in an image and a form that is derived from the images and symbols present in one’s own religious tradition, and mediated by the senses.516

With these divisions in physical, contemplative-introvertive and contemplative- cognitive visions in mind, in this chapter we will give an overview of modes of vision as understood by Sufis in the period of our interest. In Chapters Two and Three we have focused on respectively the final boundary crossing from this world to the otherworld and on the first boundary crossing from the otherworld to this world. In both cases we have witnessed the centrality of the theme of vision to these boundary crossings. In the case studies in Chapters Five and Six we will focus on two cases of this-worldly boundary crossing in the form of the vision of God by respectively Moses and Muhammad. This current chapter forms an important background study to the modes of vision proposed and discussed in the following two chapters. Firstly we will take a closer look at discussions about the possibility and modalities of the vision of God in this world and the otherworld in theology. After that we will discuss a set of Sufi approaches to the same issue that testify to the contemplative approach to the vision of God within Sufism. We will conclude with a discussion of the views of our main authors on the issue of the vision of God in their non- tafsīr writings.

514 Wolfson, Speculum, 58-9.

515 Ibid., 60.

516 Ibid., 60-1, 66-7.

191 2 Theological discussions on the vision of God

Several verses in the Qurʾān allude only fragmentarily to the existence of the idea of a vision of God, while some other verses seemingly speak against the concept. The request of vision in this world is mentioned three times in an apparently negative sense. Q2:55 and

4:153 mention a request from the people of Israel to Moses to show them God, after which they are thunderstruck. In Q7:143 Moses requests it himself, and is apparently refused the vision and faints. A meeting (liqāʾ) with God is alluded to in several verses dealing with judgment day, e.g. Q6:31, 9:77, 18:105.517 Ḥadīth literature contains more explicit references in favor of a vision as a reward in the hereafter.518 It is not exactly clear when the issue first

517 Cf. Claude Gilliot, “La Vision de Dieu dans l’au delà. Exégèse, tradition et théologie en Islam,” in

Pensée grecque et sagesse d'Orient. Hommage á Michel Tardieu, eds. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi et al.

(Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), 241-47; Tuft, “Controversy,” 6-16; Wesley W. Williams, “Tajallī wa-Ruʾya: A

Study of Anthropomorphic Theophany and Visio Dei in the Hebrew Bible, the Qurʾān and Early

Sunnī Islam” (University of Michigan PhD Dissertation, 2008),76-100.

518 Ḥadīth literature on the question of ruʾya is a genre in itself, worthwhile of a separate study. For

4th/10th century collections of ḥadīth material specifically on the vision of God see Abū al-Ḥasan al-

Dāraquṭnī, Ruʾyat Allāh jalla wa-ʿalā, ed. Abū Uways al-Kurdī (Cairo: Dār Ibn Tayimiyya, 2013) and the

Kitāb ruʾyat Allāh by Ibn al-Naḥḥās (d. 416/1025) transcribed and translated into German in Bernd

Radtke, Materialen zur alten islamischen Frömmigkeit (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 195-214. Also al-Daqqāq al-

Aṣbahānī (d. 516/1122) dedicated a treatise to the subject. Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-

Wāḥid b. Muḥammad al-Aṣbahānī al-Daqqāq, Majlīs imlāʾ fī ruʾyat Allāh, ed. Al-Sharīf Ḥātim b. ʿĀrif al-

ʿAwnī (Ryadh: Maktabat al-Rushd, 1997). As late as the 9th/15th century the renowned ḥadīth scholar Ibn Ḥajr al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852/1449) composed a treatise specifically on the issue whether

Muhammad had seen God during his night journey. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Ḥajr al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Ghunya fī masʾalat al-ruʾya (Ṭanṭā: Dār al-ṣahāba li’l-turāth, 1992). For further discussion of the use of ḥadīth material in the debate on the vision of God see Williams, “Tajallī wa-Ru’ya,” 155-203.

192 became a controversy, and whether it has non-Islamic roots.519 Van Ess indicates that the issue was already discussed by Jahm b. Ṣafwān (d. 128/746) and his opponents, as well as by alleged anthropomorphists like Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 150/767), and thus predates the rise of the Muʿtazila.520 From the early fourth/tenth century onwards, with the careers of al-

Ashʿarī (d. 324/935-6) and al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944), and the late Muʿtazilī ʿAbd al-Jabbār (d.

415/1025) the formal dialectic discussions by theological ‘schools’ on the issue have reached us. The positions of these different schools are fairly well documented.521 A brief overview thus suffices.

519 On the possible non-Islamic origins see Tuft, “Controversy,” 47-54; Sarah Stroumsa, “Voiles et miroirs: visions surnaturelles en théologie judéo-arabe médiévale,” in Autour du regard: mélanges

Gimaret, ed. Éric Chaumont (Leuven: Peeters, 2002), 78-80.

520 Muqātil believed in an anthropomorphic otherworldly vision of God and even a physical touch by

God. Similar ideas were proffered by other early anthropomorphists. TG, I, 345, 362, 383; II, 208, 379,

528-30. Tuft has suggested that the beginning of the controversy should be located at the start of the ninth century CE. He dates the start of the controversy e silentio on the basis of the earliest mention in early credal texts. He locates the earliest mention of the vision of God (more specifically liqāʾ

Allāh, the meeting with God) in the Waṣīya attributed to Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 148/767), which he believes to have been authored somewhere between Abū Ḥanīfa’s death year and the death of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal

(d. 241/855). Tuft, “Controversy,” 34-45.

521 See Tuft, “Controversy”; Éric Chaumont (ed.), Autour Du Regard: Mélanges Gimaret (Leuven: Peeters,

2002); Pūrjavādī, Ruʾyat-i māh; Williams, “Tajallī wa-Ruʾya”; Gilliot, “Vision de Dieu”; Louis Gardet,

Dieu et la destinée de l’homme (Paris: Libraire Philosophique J. Vrin, 1967), 338-46; EI2, s.v. Ruʾyat Allāh,

VIII, 649 (D. Gimaret); the index of TG, under ruʾyat Allāh. Shīʿī approaches on the issue are close to the Muʿtazilī approaches. They are not presented in this overview, because of their limited influence on Sufi thought in the period under scrutiny. For a discussion of Shīʿī positions see Georges Vajda,

“Le problème de la vision de Dieu (ruʾya) d’après quelques auteurs šīʿites duodécimains,” in Etudes de

193 Three main issues have occupied theologians concerning the vision of God: its theoretical possibility in both this world and in the otherworld, its actual occurrence and its modality.522 The main positions are divided among the Muʿtazila and Jahmiyya on the one side of the spectrum categorically denying its possibility and occurrence, and on the other side the Ashʿarīs, Māturīdīs and Ḥanbalī-traditionists confirming its possibility in both abodes and its occurrence in the hereafter, but differing on its modality. The general trend in the Muʿtazilī and Jahmī schools was to deny the ocular vision of God on grounds of the incorporeality of God: what has neither body nor direction cannot be seen. The Jahmiyya refused the vision of God both in the otherworld and this world, as well as in dreams. Also the ascension of Muhammad and the subsequent vision they rejected: Paradise was not yet created according to their theology and they held God to be everywhere and nowhere, not in heaven.523 The Muʿtazilīs did not reason from the Qurʾānic texts, but rather saw certain

Qurʾānic texts as a confirmation of the doctrine they reached through dialectic reasoning. It was rationally impossible to see God, and thus were the Qurʾānic passages interpreted and understood.524

The Ashʿarīs, Māturīdīs and Ḥanbalī-traditionists generally agreed on the theoretical possibility of the vision of God in both this world and the otherworld, and on its occurrence in the otherworld, but they differed on its modality. For Ḥanbalī-traditionists texts of

Qurʾān and ḥadīth in their apparent meaning sufficed to confirm the existence of ruʾya in

théologie et de philosophie arabo-islamiques à l’époque classique, eds. Daniel Gimaret, M. Hayoun, and J.

Jolivet (London: Variorum Reprints, 1986), 31-54.

522 Gardet, Dieu, 338-40.

523 On the position of the Jahmiyya see TG, I, 139; II, 186, 502, 504, 528, 535, 700-01; III, 49, 184; V, 220-

21.

524 For the Muʿtazila see Tuft, “Controversy,” 175-212; TG, III, 382, 472-74, 496; IV, 9, 57; V, 398.

194 the hereafter for the believers, and its modality by the physical eye.525 The position of the

Ashʿarīs was rooted in the view of the traditionists, but added dialectical reasoning to textual, philological and exegetical arguments (to a larger extent than the Māturīdīs, who mostly relied on the latter). They deemed the vision theoretically possible in both this world and the otherworld, based on an argument from existence: God exists, and everything that exists can be seen by definition.526 They stated that it only occurs in the otherworld as a reward for the believers. On the modality of the vision they were more equivocal. Although early voices insisted on a non-comprehensive physical vision with the eye, sometimes nuanced by the clause “without mentioning how” (bi-lā kayf), later thinkers, among whom were Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d.

606/1210), had more complicated positions on the issue, and proposed a ‘vision’ on an imaginary and cognitive level.527 It will go too far to treat these arguments extensively here. For now it suffices to conclude that there was still significant movement and debate on the issue in the timeframe that we are dealing with.528

525 The Ḥanbalī-traditionist Ibn al-Qayyim, in his work on eschatology Ḥādī al-arwāḥ, states at the start of the chapter on the vision of God that “this chapter is the most honorable, most significant and most important chapter of the book, the most dear to ahl al-sunna wa’l-jamāʿa and the most difficult for the people of innovation and error (ahl al-bidʿa wa’l-ḍalāla).” He therewith confirms both the centrality of the vision of God to the Sunni eschatological imagination, and the importance of the issue in polemics between theological schools. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Ḥādī al-arwāḥ ilā bilād al- afrāḥ (Cairo: Maktabat al-Mutanabbī, n.d.), 195.

526 Gardet, Dieu, 339; Tuft, “Controversy,” 133-66.

527 For a discussion of al-Ghazālī see Tuft, “Controversy,” 167-74. For al-Rāzī see Guy Monnot, “Vision de Dieu et Bonheur de l’homme dans le commentaire coranique de Fahr al-Dīn al-Rāzī,” in Autour du regard: mélanges Gimaret, ed. Éric Chaumont (Leuven: Peeters, 2002), 63-75.

528 For a more elaborate discussion of the complexity and evolution of these dialectical discussions I once again refer to Tuft, “Controversy.”

195

3 A typology of this-worldly vision in early Sufism

In early Sufism generally speaking the idea of an otherworldly vision by the eye as the ultimate reward in the hereafter was widely accepted as both possible and existent. This vision was thus considered to be physical, not only contemplative. This wide acceptance can be explained by the fact that the Muʿtazilī and Jahmī creed have historically been insignificant among Sufis. Most Sufis from the formative period had either Ashʿarī or traditionist leanings.529 This-worldly vision led to more discord. Some Sufi authorities rejected the idea completely, while others formulated theories of a vision of the heart (ruʾya bi’l-qalb) that allowed an abstract, contemplative, non-anthropomorphic and non- indwelling vision of God, often referred to as mushāhada (witnessing).530

529 Karamustafa has described the link of Sufis to the traditionists and the schools of kalām satisfactorily. Karamustafa, Formative Period, 87-108. Some authors have pointed out that most Sufis preferred Ashʿarism over Muʿtazilism due to the former’s acceptance of miracles (karāmāt), refuted by the latter. Also their emphasis on God’s omnipotence and the limitation of reason made it more acceptable for Sufis who preferred an epistemology of experience to rationalism. See Ernst,

Ruzbihan, 28; Melchert, “Competing Movements,” 243; Madelung, Religious Trends, 46-47. However, some Muʿtazilī Sufis are in fact known to us, the so-called Ṣūfiyyāt al-muʿtazila. They seem not to have been part of the Muʿtazilī mainstream, and to have had some theological particularities. Sviri even suggests that the term Muʿtazilī originally must have had the connotation of ‘renunciant’ or

‘ascetic’, rather than a theological meaning. Bernd Radtke, “Von den hinderlichen Wirkungen der

Exstase und dem Wesen der Ignoranz,” in Neue Kritische Gänge: Zu Stand und Aufgaben der

Sufikforschung (Utrecht: M. Th. Houtsma Stichting, 2005), 280; TG, III, 130-34; IV, 88-94; EI2, s.v.

Muʿtazila. VII, 784 (D. Gimaret); Sviri, “Reconsidering Terms,” 23-8.

530 The suggestion of a vision through the heart was also made by the Muʿtazilī Abū al-Hudhayl (d.

227/841) pertaining to the hereafter. TG, III, 256.

196 The inception of these different views must be sought in early proto-Sufism. In the circles of the renunciants (zuhhād or nussāk), the denial of a this-worldly vision was not self- evident. Rather bold and seemingly anthropomorphic claims were made about the possibility of a this-worldly vision, sometimes in the sense of God’s incarnation in humans and animals (ḥulūl).531 In his Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn the famous theologian al-Ashʿarī (d.

324/936) three times mentions a group he calls the nussāk, and three times links them to the possibility of a this-worldly vision of God:

Among the nussāk of the Sufis are those who speak about ḥulūl, that the Creator is incarnated in creatures, and that it is possible that he incarnates in a human, a wild animal and other individuals. The people who say this, when they see something that they deem beautiful they say: ‘We do not know whether God is maybe incarnated in it.’532

Among them are those who presume that worship can bring them to the point that they see God, eat from the fruits of the Garden and embrace the beautifully eyed women (ḥūr al-ʿayn) in this world.533

However, this vision of God appears to have been controversial even among this group:

A group from among the Sufis deemed it possible that miracles (muʿjizāt) become manifest to the upright, and that the fruits of the Garden come to them in this world and they eat from them, and they have sexual intercourse with the ḥūr al-ʿayn in this world, and the angels appear to them, and the devils (shayāṭīn) appear to them and they fight them, and they do not deem it possible to see God in this world. (…) And others deemed all that we mentioned about their predecessors possible, and also

531 Josef van Ess, “Schönheit und Macht. Verborgene Ansichten des islamischen Gottesbildes,” in

Schönheit und Mass: Beiträge der Eranos-Tagungen 2005 und 2006, eds. Erik Hornung and Andreas

Schweizer (Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2007), 15-24.

532 Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn, 13-14.

533 Ibid., 289.

197 deemed it possible to see God in this world, and to accompany Him and to sit with Him.534

It is very likely that these passages refer to figures like the group around Abū Ḥulmān al-

Dimashqī (d. c. 340/951), who claimed that God could be heard and seen through creation, to Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī (d. 215/830), who did not go as far as claiming a this-worldly vision, but whose students did claim intimacy with the otherworldly ḥūr al-ʿayn in this world, or to Walīd b. Zayd (d. 177/793), who believed God would be seen in this world according to one’s pious acts, or Kahmas (d. 149/766), who was indicted for believing that

God could even be touched.535 Such conceptions of God were more widespread. Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī (d. c. 261/874-5) claimed a vision of God as a beardless young man, and Abū Bakr al-Qaḥṭabī even claimed to have seen God in the form of his mother.536 Such sensory conceptions of God also made it into ḥadīth traditions that had their root in Syrian jihād circles, the same milieu that early renunciants like al-Dārāni were part of.537 A prophetic

534 Ibid., 438-39.

535 Karamustafa, Formative Period, 105; Massignon, Essay, 80. Van Ess has suggested that Abū Saʿīd al-

Kharrāz’s correspondence with a group of Sufis in Damascus, Kitāb ruʾyat al-qulūb, is directed to the followers of Abū Ḥulmān. In this treatise al-Kharrāz is said to refute a group who held the view that they could see God with their hearts in this world as the inhabitants of Paradise will see God with their eyes. Unfortunately this treatise is lost. The treatise is mentioned by al-Sarrāj and al-Kalābādhī in their Sufi handbooks. Sarrāj, Lumaʿ, 428; Abū Bakr al-Kalābādhī, Kitāb al-ta’arruf li-madhhab ahl al- taṣawwuf, translated by Arthur J. Arberry, The Doctrine of the Ṣūfīs (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1977), 27; Kharrāz, Rasāʾil, 18; TG, I, 144; EI2, s.v. al-Kharrāz, IV, 1083-84 (W. Madelung). It may have something to do with the Sālimiyya as well, who are said to have believed in a vision of God in human form (and thus with the eye), allegedly even in the form of Muhammad and Adam. TG, II, 109;

Baldick, Mystical Islam, 52; Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, 104.

536 Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 137.

537 Van Ess, “Schönheit und Macht,” 15-24.

198 tradition attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās relates how Muhammad in a dream sees God “in his most beautiful form,” and feels how God touches him between his shoulders. 538 Other transmissions also relate a vision by Muhammad of God in the form of a beardless young man, of a young man with long hair, as a young man sitting on a throne with his foot in a meadow of light, as a beardless young man behind a veil of pearls, with his feet in green, or on a camel in a cloak of wool.539

Al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243/857) firmly criticized these ideas, stating that who claimed to have seen God, the angels or the ḥūr al-ʿayn is a liar.540 He himself was much more careful and modest when speaking of the possibility of a this-worldly vision, speaking rather as a theoretician than from experience. Following the traditionist position he considered the otherworldly vision to be with the eye. The yearning for this vision is the basis for the enrapturing love of God.541 The vision of God is such an overwhelming experience that the technique of imagining it into presence (tawahhum) cannot be applied to it as it can to Paradise and Hell. A vision of God in this world does thus not exist, not even with the heart or in the imagination.542

A similar denunciation is expressed by al-Sarrāj in his Kitāb al-lumaʿ, be it in ambiguous language. He firstly discusses the question of the vision of God by the heart briefly and neutrally, defining it as “the gazing of the hearts towards what has been

538 Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 136-37; Van Ess, “Schönheit und Macht,” 15-24; Ritter, “Philologica II,”

256-57.

539 Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 136-37; Van Ess, “Schönheit und Macht,” 15-24; Josef van Ess, The Youthful

God: Anthropomorphism in Early Islam (Tempe: Arizona State University, 1988), 9-13.

540 For a German translation of this passage from Muḥāsibī’s Naṣāʾiḥ see Van Ess, Gedankenwelt, 216.

541 Margaret Smith holds that yearning for the vision of God was the basis for the mystical love of

God in the work of al-Muḥāsibī. Margaret Smith, An Early Mystic of Baghdad. A study of the life and teaching of Ḥārith b. Asad al-Muḥāsibī, A.D. 781-857 (London: Sheldon Press, 1977), 244-48.

542 Van Ess, Gedankenwelt, 213-18.

199 inherited in the Unseen by the lights of certainty (anwār al-yaqīn) by means of the realities of faith (ḥaqāʾiq al-īmān).”543 He quotes ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib in favor of it.544 However, a later passage is specifically dedicated to “those who are wrong concerning the vision of the hearts.” He mentions that he has heard of a group from Syria through a treatise of al-

Kharrāz who believed that they could see God in this world with their hearts as they shall see Him with the eye in paradise.545 He gives an example of the followers of al-Ṣubayḥī in

Baṣra, who thought to have seen God on a throne while it was in reality Satan deluding them. He also denounces the Sufis who claim to have travelled to paradise and to have seen

God there.546 This experience he holds to be unique to the prophet Muhammad (Q53:11). He warns the Sufis that all lights in this world are created and cannot be identified as God.547

To al-Sarrāj the only possible this-worldly vision is by the mode of witnessing (mushāhada).

To explain its meaning, he quotes al-Kharrāz supporting the witnessing of God with the heart: who witnesses God in the heart, has no other thing than God in his heart. The vision

(ru’ya) of the heart, which al-Kharrāz refuted in his treatise to the Damascenes, al-Sarrāj considers not to be the same as witnessing (mushāhada) with the heart. Witnessing, Sarrāj explains by quoting ʿAmr b. ʿUthmān al-Makkī (d. 291/903 or 297/910), is a form that combines between the vision of the heart and the vision of the eye, and looks upon things

543 Sarrāj, Lumaʿ, 350.

544 “When ʿAlī was asked ‘Do you see our Lord?’ he said, ‘How can we worship who we do not see?’

Then he said, ‘The eyes do not see Him, meaning in this world by the uncovering of the eye-vision

(kashf al-ʿiyān), but the hearts see Him by the realities of faith. God has said: ‘The heart did not belie what it saw’.’ He thus confirmed the vision by the heart in this world.” Sarrāj, Lumaʿ, 350. The role of the cited Qurʾān verse in the issue will be further scrutinized in the next chapter.

545 See footnote 535 in this chapter.

546 This is very likely a criticism of al-Basṭāmī, whose claim of a miʿrāj is, although not unique, the most famous.

547 Sarrāj, Lumaʿ, 428.

200 with a contemplative eye to see God in it. The vision of the heart is less pure. It is merely a form of Vergegenwärtigung (tawahhum), as in the ḥadīth ‘Worship God as if you see Him.’548

Also al-Kalābādhī (d. 380/990 or 384/994) denied the this-worldly vision both with the eye and the heart, and held that this was the position of the Sufis. He argues that such a noble blessing as seeing God can only take place in a place as noble as Paradise. Since this world is a passing abode, the Eternal is not seen there. Also, since Moses was rejected the vision in this world (Q7:143), all other people who are lower than him in rank can certainly not reach it. In the case of Muhammad he does take note of the difference of opinion on whether he saw God during his ascension (miʿrāj), mentioning the names of the different authorities in favor of and against a this-worldly vision by Muhammad, either with the physical eye or the heart.549 However, he still concludes his discussion of the issue with a confirmation that he does not know “of a single shaykh of this order –that is, not one who is recognized as a valid authority (…) that God is seen in this world, or that any of His creation has seen Him.”550 He specifically mentions Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz and al-Junayd as having written refutations on deluded Sufis who did claim that God is seen in this world.551

But these authors did not have the last word on the matter. Still a century after al-

Muḥāsibī, Sufis indeed proposed a vision of God with the heart by the manifestation (tajallī)

548 Ibid., 68-9.

549 For the different positions in this discussion see Chapter Six. Here it is worthwhile to note that al-

Kalābādhī conceptualized the contested vision of Muhammad during his night journey as a this- worldly vision, despite its taking place during a journey to an otherworldly realm. This shows that the concept of dunyā to him was rather temporal than spatial. Although Muhammad allegedly visited the otherworld, it is still considered as taking place in dunyā. The otherworld only becomes

ākhira after the Day of Judgment, and a visit to the otherworldly realm thus takes place in dunyā.

Everything before the Day of Judgment is dunyā by definition.

550 Kalābādhī, Taʿarruf (trans. Arberry), 27.

551 Ibid., 24-7.

201 of God’s light on it, or a vision of God through creation rather than in creation, thus differing from the understanding of the early ḥulūliyya. While these early understandings still had a physical idea of the vision, later understandings took it to be a strictly contemplative vision through the ocular contemplation of creation.552 On the vision by the heart al-Shiblī (d.

334/946) stated in a line of poetry that “When the eye does not see You, then still the heart does see You.”553 Ibn ʿAṭāʾ (d. 311/923) said about Q50:37, who has a heart, that it signifies a heart that sees God.554 Also Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Niffarī (d. c. 366/976-7) endorsed the idea of a this-worldly vision of God. In his work al-Mawāqif he described the direct this-worldly vision of God as the final station (mawqif) on the mystical path. To him the latter depended on the former: who did not see God in this world, would not see Him in the otherworld.555 The vision of God is ultimately all that matters to him, and the only thing that can save one from the Fire:

He let me stand in the Fire. I saw it consuming knowledge (ʿilm), works (ʿamal), wisdom (ḥikma) and experiential knowledge (maʿrifa), standpoints (mawāqif) and stations (maqāmāt). I saw the intellects in their drawing near as firewood for it. I saw the hearts in their sincerity as firewood for it. So I became hot! And it said to me: ‘If you have seen God, then you will come to me with knowledge, works, wisdom, experiential knowledge and will say to me: this is your firewood so consume it. And

552 For a comprehensive discussion of different Sufi approaches to ‘seeing’ God (Gott überall sehen, Gott in allen Dingen sehen, Nur Gott sehen, Alle Dinge in Gott sehen) see Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 229-52.

Gramlich confusingly translates different modes of vision that have separate names in Arabic (e.g. ruʾya, mushāhada) and subtle differences in meaning all with ‘Schau’, which makes it necessary to refer back to the primary sources for a nuanced understanding of the modes of vision he describes.

553 Ibid., 230.

554 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, II, 269; Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 231.

555 Arthur J. Arberry, ed. and trans., The mawāqif and mukhāṭabāt of Muhammad ibn ʿAbdi ‘l-Jabbār al-

Niffarī with other fragments (Cambridge: EJW Gibb Memorial Trust, 1935),18-20.

202 if you have not seen God, then you are my firewood, not your knowledge, not your works, not your wisdom and not your experiential knowledge.’”556

Al-Hujwīrī in his Kashf al-maḥjūb explained manifestation (tajallī) as follows:

The blessed effect of Divine illumination on the hearts of the blest, whereby they are made capable of seeing God with their hearts. The difference between spiritual vision (ruʾyat ba-dil) and actual vision (ruʾyat-i ʿiyān) is this, that those who experience tajallī (manifestation of God) see or do not see, according as they wish, or see at one time and do not see at another time, while those who experience actual vision in Paradise cannot but see, even though they wish not to see; for it is possible that tajallī should be hidden, whereas ruʾyat (vision) cannot possibly be veiled.557

As for seeing God through creation (rather than His indwelling in creation), al-Wāsiṭī stated that one’s belief in one God is only complete when one sees God in every speckle of dust from God’s throne to the lowest earth (min al-ʿarsh ilā al-tharā). Many similar sayings can be found by later authorities. Vision is here not so much seeing God Himself, but rather contemplating what is created in such a way that one understands that God is responsible for it, works through it, and in a way manifests in it: creation is a mirror for the Creator as it were.558 This trend could be considered a rudimentary form of the later more systematic doctrine of tajallī of the school of Ibn ʿArabī, also present, be it less systematic, in the work of Rūzbihān.559

556 ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Niffarī, “Kitāb al-mawāqif,” in Trois oeuvres inédites de mystiques musulmans: Să qīq al-Balḫī, Ibn ʻAṭā, Niffarī, ed. Paul Nwyia (Beirut: Dar El Machreq, 1973), 203.

557 Hujwīrī, Kashf (trans. Nicholson), 389. Note the difference between the permanent state of vision in paradise, and the impermanent character of the this-worldly vision.

558 Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 233.

559 Cf. Michel Chodkiewicz, “The Vision of God according to Ibn ʿArabī,” in Sufism: Love & Wisdom, eds.

Jean-Louis Michon and Roger Gaetani (Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2006), 33-48.

203 So the discussion in early Sufism never chrystallized into a definite position.

Although the anthropomorphic and immanentist aspects had largely been swept aside by the concepts of ruʾyat al-qalb and mushāhada and thus the yearning to see God in this world had been brought in harmony with the outward (ẓāhir) understandings of religion, Sufi authorities still did not reach a consensus on the vision by the heart. It must be noted that in the understanding of the later Sufis who held it to be possible in the heart, mostly by using the term mushāhada, this ‘vision’ did not give a specific form to God. The claimed vision was considered to be what Wolfson calls introvertive rather than cognitive. Although the language chosen to express the alleged experience may have been visual, they most likely did not mean to have really seen God in a form: the ‘vision’ was abstract. It was rather meant as that which Gramlich called ‘Gott vor Augen haben’: the Sufi has banned out everything other than God from the heart, and has totally directed all his thought and ambitions, all his heart, to God alone, thinking of and envisioning none other than God.560 It is as such a contemplative state of being totally directed towards God, rather than a physical visionary experience.

4 The commentators on the vision of God in their non-tafsīr works

In the other works of our commentators several remarks are made about the possibility and the modality of the vision of God. From al-Sulamī there are no clear statements by himself available on credal matters. Also from Maybudī we have no credal works, and we can only rely on his commentary for his opinions on the vision. For al-Qushayrī, al-Daylamī and

Rūzbihān this is different: all three wrote texts on creed that contain explicit and intended statements on the question of the vision of God. What becomes clear from them is that

560 Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 231.

204 there is quite a difference between the first and the latter two: al-Daylamī and Rūzbihān enthusiastically defend and describe the possibility, actual occurrence and modality of this- worldly visions of God, while al-Qushayrī is much more reserved and is not even particularly sympathetic towards forms of contemplative vision.

4.1 Al-Qushayrī

It may not come as a surprise that al-Qushayrī, as an Ashʿarī partisan in a time of political unrest between Muʿtazilī and Ashʿarī factions, gave some space to the subject of the vision of God in his works. In his formal credal work Lumaʿ fī’l-iʿtiqād he confirms in conformity with Ashʿarī positions on the matter that “He be seen is theoretically possible and, on the basis of revelation, is certain for the believers when they are in paradise. As we know Him today, although ‘No being is like Him’ (42.11), the believers shall see Him tomorrow when they are in paradise, although ‘No being is like Him’.”561 In al-Fuṣūl fī’l-uṣūl he repeats this position with added theological nuance: “It is possible that the Creator (let Him be praised) be visually seen. The evidence for this is that visibility does not entail the temporal contingency of the visible in any way. Vision can, thus, have the Eternal (let Him be praised) as its object, just as knowing and predication can.”562

This position also entails the theoretical possibility of the vision of God in this world.

For the actual occurrence of such a this-worldly vision, even in the inner contemplative sense, al-Qushayrī seems to have had less enthusiasm than for its otherworldly counterpart.

In his famous work al-Risāla he responds negatively to the question whether the vision of

God in this world is possible by a God-given miracle (karāma), claiming a scholarly

561 Richard M. Frank, “Two short dogmatic works of Abū l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, Part 1: edition and translation of Lumaʿ fī l-iʿtiqād,” MIDEO 15 (1982): 68.

562 Richard M. Frank, “Two short dogmatic works of Abū l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, Part 2: edition and translation of al-Fuṣūl fī l-uṣūl,” MIDEO 16 (1983): 81.

205 consensus on the matter, and mentioning that al-Ashʿarī himself has refuted it. 563

Furthermore he discusses very few terms related to the vision of God in his Risāla.564 He does discuss the term mushāhada as the last stage of a threefold experience also comprising of divine presence (muḥāḍara) and unveiling (mukāshafa). However, he does not explicitly link it to a this-worldly visionary experience of God. Quoting ʿAmr b. ʿUthmān al-Makkī approvingly, he defines it as an experience of the manifestation (tajallī) of God upon the heart. By this witnessing one comes to experiential knowledge (maʿrifa) of God, by which one’s self is erased.565 The possibility of seeing God in a dream may have been open to him.

Tradition has it that he once saw God in a dream and complained to Him about his sick son, to which God responded by prescribing a litany for his cure.566

4.2 Al-Daylamī

Al-Daylamī tackled the issue of the vision of God in his mystical-theological treatise Jawāhir al-asrār extensively and polemically. 567 Although his affirmative position of the otherworldly vision fits well within the Sunni mainstream, his argumentation is slightly different and has its peculiarities. When he introduces the topic, he polemically takes aim at the Muʿtazilīs and the philosophers, who according to him have an inaccurate approach to the texts of Qurʾān and ḥadīth and thus to the vision of God. His issue with the Muʿtazilīs is that they hold vision (ruʾya) to merely mean knowledge (ʿilm), and that the ‘vision’ of God

563 Qushayrī, Risāla (trans. Knysh), 362.

564 Böwering has explained the relative absence of visionary experience in the early handbooks by pointing to the aural sense as the preferred mode of communication with God in classical Sufism.

Böwering, “From Word to Vision,” 208.

565 Qushayrī, Risāla (trans. Knysh), 97-9.

566 Dāwūdī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn, I, 349.

567 Abū Thābit Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī, “Jawāhir al-asrār,” Şehid Ali Pasa 1346.

206 should thus be understood as knowledge of God. In a lengthy passage he blames the philosophers for falsely taking the intellect (ʿaql) as the foundation for understanding the

Qurʾān and ḥadīth, and compares their approaches to the ibāḥiyya and mulḥidīn.568 God, he holds, is known by necessity by both the believers and the unbelievers in the hereafter. God creates this necessary knowledge in them to fully grasp His eternal existence, and therewith the perpetuity of His reward and punishment. The vision of God with the eye of the head (ʿayn al-raʾs) is the means to obtain this knowledge.569 He further involves typical verses (Q75:22-23; 6:103; 7:143; 10:7, 26; 29:5) and aḥādīth in his argument to support his case for the existence of the otherworldly vision and possibility of the vision in both this world and the otherworld.570

On the issue of this-worldly vision he claims to follow the mainstream Sunni position. He specifies what he holds to be the correct approach of the Sufi masters, even claiming a consensus among them. He is explicit on both its possibility and its modality:

God can be seen in this-worldly life by the vision of the heart (baṣīrat al-qalb).571 In the treatise he himself claims to have experienced it, stating that “after having finished writing it on Thursday evening I saw God the entire Friday night from its beginning to its end.”572

He holds the idea that God is seen in the hereafter with the eye of the head and in this world with the eye of the heart in sleeping state, or somewhere between sleeping and waking state, to be a position that was shared by many of earlier generations among

568 Daylamī, “Jawāhir,” folio 4ab, 5a.

569 Ibid., folio 11a.

570 Ibid., folio 12ab.

571 Ibid., folio 11a. For ḥadīth material and discussions on seeing God in one’s sleep see Chapter Two footnote 278.

572 Daylamī, “Jawāhir,” folio 6ab.

207 scholars, renunciants and Sufis.573 To him there is no difference between seeing God in sleeping or waking state: the essence as a vision of the heart is the same.574 He also names a list of earlier Sufi authorities that have stated that they have experienced the vision of God by the heart in this world, and have testified of this experience in their sayings and writings.575 The claim of this experience by them is sufficient to him as evidence for the possibility of this vision, and because of their piety and sincerity naturally overrules the

573 From among the scholars he mentions Abū Ḥanīfa, Sufyān al-Thawrī, al-Shāfiʿī, Mālik and their companions, as well as the people of ḥadīth like Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and Yaḥyā b. Maysar. Daylamī,

“Jawāhir,” folio 11a. In another treatise, ʿUyūn al-maʿārif, he also deals with this question. However in this treatise he rebukes the ‘normal’ scholars (as opposed to the Sufi elite) who deny this vision. He states the following: “Concerning the vision of God in waking state in the this-worldly abode before death by the eye of the inmost self (ʿayn al-sirr) and the light of faith, that is a favor of God that He gives to whom He wills among His servants, but with the eye of the heart, not with the eye of the head. And the common people they all deny that, except those Sufis. They necessarily confirm it because they see God, and few of their disciples believe them because of their following of them. The majority of the people denying it are those who do confirm it in the otherworldly abode with their eyes staring. They are the Ḥanbalīs, the Ashʿarīs, the Karrāmiyya and their likes of the people of

ḥadīth. This is a big ignorance of them that contradicts the foundations of the religion.” Translated from Arberry, “Works of al-Dailamī,” 51. The same passage can be found in Daylamī, “Muhimmat al- wāṣilīn,” folio 206a.

574 Daylamī, “Jawāhir,” folio 11b.

575 He names the illustrous and well known early figures Dhū al-Nūn al-Miṣrī, Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī, al-Maʿrūf al-Karkhī, Sahl al-Tustarī, al-Sarī al-Saqaṭī, al-Junayd, al-Ruwaym, al-Nūrī, Ibn ʿAṭāʾ, al-

Shiblī, Abū Bakr al-Wāsiṭī, Abū ʿAlī al-Rūdhabārī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥafīf al-Shīrāzī, Abū Saʿīd al-

Kharrāz and Abū al-Ḥasan al-Kharaqānī. Daylamī, “Jawāhir,” folio 11b. Whether all these authorities have indeed claimed such experience is contestable. Note for example his mentioning of al-Junayd and al-Kharrāz, which goes against the claims of al-Sarrāj and al-Kalābādhī about them. Cf.

Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 229-32.

208 claims of those denying it: experience has a higher epistemic value than rationality for al-

Daylamī.576

He differentiates between the mutakallimūn and the falāsifa on the one side and the masters of taṣawwuf on the other side. The latter recognize that the essence (dhāt) and attributes (ṣifāt) of God may be experientially known by means of witnessing (mushāhada) and vision (ruʾya) through the vision of the heart (baṣīrat al-qalb), while the former believe that in this-worldly life knowledge of God can only be obtained through the intellect

(ʿaql).577 He thus describes a typical epistemological conflict between mystical-experiential and rational ways of knowing. One could argue that this is where the paths split between al-

Qushayrī and him. The former did not as explicitly recognize the epistemic value of mystical experience, and therewith of the vision of God, as the latter.

4.3 Rūzbihān

With the writings of Rūzbihān the issue becomes even more complex. From his autobiography Kashf al-asrār it becomes very clear that he subscribed to the possibility of a this-worldly vision of God, or at least of His attributes and actions in the form of a visual divine manifestation (tajallī). Carl Ernst has even claimed that “vision (ruʾya) is the most important general category for mystical experience in Rūzbihān’s vocabulary.”578 It appears that for Rūzbihān this vision, imagining God in human forms, is neither just an abstract introvertive witnessing, nor a full vision with the physiological eye. Rūzbihān may be the clearest example thus far of what Wolfson calls a cognitive vision: God is perceived in an image and a form that is derived from the images and symbols present in his own religious and cultural environment. Rūzbihān himself claims that theological argumentation

576 Daylamī, “Jawāhir,” folio 11a.

577 Ibid., folio 11a.

578 Ernst, Ruzbihan, 18.

209 becomes irrelevant once overwhelmed by the ecstatic vision of God. In Kashf al-asrār he describes how he feels when experiencing this vision: “In my ecstasy and my spiritual state my heart did not remember arguments about understanding God in human terms or reducing him to abstraction, for in seeing the Most High, all traces of intellects and sciences are erased.”579 However, when we read both the descriptions of his visions and his theological statements on vision a bit more closely we can see that his claimed visionary encounters are not void from theological presuppositions, and are embedded in and conditioned by his religious and cultural landscape.

In Masālik al-tawḥīd he shows himself true to the Ashʿarī perspective on the matter.

He confirms the vision with the eye in the hereafter, and denies its occurrence in this world. 580 However, he does not deny its possibility with the eye in this world, following the typical Ashʿarī argument that Moses as an impeccable prophet would not have requested something impossible from God. Above that he supports a vision in sleep and in the heart, in different states:

But it is not impossible (mustaḥīl), rather the vision with the outer eye (ruʾyat al-ʿayn al-ẓāhira) is conceivable (jāʾiz). The evidence of that is the request of Moses of the vision of God when he said ‘My Lord show [Yourself] to me, [so] I [can] look at you’. It is impossible that the prophet who was spoken to and elected for the message and the Book would ask something that is impossible, and attributing ignorance [in religious matters] to him is unbelief (kufr). And just as God is known without [specifying] how (bi-lā-kayf), he is also seen without [specifying] how (bi-lā-kayf), and he is not ‘owned’ by creatures because seeing Him is confirmed. And the vision of God is conceivable in sleep, and in wakefulness with the heart, because of the saying of the Prophet: ‘Who sees God in one’s sleep will not be punished by the Fire.’ And he said: ‘Make your bellies hungry and make your livers thirsty, then you will see God

579 Baqli, Kashf (trans. Ernst), 102-03.

580 Rūzbihān al-Baqlī, “Masālik al-tawḥīd,” in Quatre traités inédits de Ruzbehân Baqlî Shîrâzî: textes arabes avec un commentaire, ed. Paul Ballanfat (Tehran: Institut français de recherche en Iran, 1988),

177.

210 with your heart.’ That is possible in states (ḥāl), in ecstasy (wajd), in intoxication (sukr) and sobriety (ṣaḥw).581

Also in his work Mashrab al-arwāḥ, his explanation of Sufi stations, states and technical vocabulary, he discusses the vision of God. Commenting on the station of seeing

God outwardly (jahratan) he again confirms its possibility in this world. As proof for this possibility he mentions Moses’ request to see God, as well as several traditions attributed to

Muhammad in which he states to have seen God. Rūzbihān states that in most cases this station is reached at the time of death. Only perfect human beings (ahl al-kamāl) can reach the vision of God during their lifetime.582 When discussing the term ruʾya itself, he distinguishes three levels of this-worldly visions to which his autobiography also testifies.

The first is the vision of the Garden, the second of God’s presence (muḥāḍara), and the third the vision of God Himself. The highest level of seeing God Himself is experienced when one is on the station of observance (riʿāya). He mentions Q53:11, The heart did not belie what it saw to imply that he means a vision of the heart.583 However, the heart is a passive organ that is completely dependent of and subordinated to the spirit (rūḥ) to be capable of vision. When the heart sees, it is a consequence of the vision of the spirit. The human spirit is an eye in its origin, made of God’s light, unveiled from God, and capable of contemplating God’s attributes and through them His essence. While the heart observes God’s attributes, the locus of the vision of God’s essence is primarily the spirit. The heart, however, is the witness of the veracity of the vision by the spirit, and thus of the sincerity of the spirit.584

581 Ibid., 177.

582 Rūzbihān al-Baqlī, Kitāb Mashrab al-arwāḥ, ed. Nazif M. Hoca (Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi

Matbaası, 1974), 195.

583 Ibid., 172.

584 Ballanfat, Quatre traités, 106, 141-44.

211 In describing the modality of this vision Rūzbihān follows the Ashʿarī distinction between God’s essence (dhāt), attributes (ṣifāt) and acts (afʿāl). Although God’s essence is impenetrable for the human, and this essence can neither be known, nor seen or witnessed directly except by one’s spirit, one can see or witness manifestations of His attributes and acts in and through creation, and through them come to indirect vision and knowledge of

God’s essence.585 These attributes and acts become apparent in creation through visual divine manifestations of majesty (jalāl) and beauty (jamāl), in a process that Ernst has defined as “an endless game of hide and seek.”586 Rūzbihān connects this mode of vision of

God to iltibās (litt. ‘clothing’), a term typical for his mystical thought that signifies a bestowal of divine qualities on humanity or creation, a clothing with divinity.587 When in the state of iltibās, the believer is granted a vision of God through His attributes. Only that is attainable, the vision of God’s unadulterated essence is rejected however:

God has granted him with what he is capable of grasping and does not disturb the purity of intimacy for him, and makes him see himself in the cloth of His action (fiʿl) until his existence (wujūd) with God remains, and takes the fortune of the vision of the attributes (ruʾyat al-ṣifāt) from His beauty. Don’t you see how God forbade Moses from seeing the unadulterated (ruʾyat al-ṣirf), and turned him away from Him, only after the iltibās, by His saying when he asked what he asked, “You shall not see Me, but look at the mountain.” The Prophet clarified the realities of iltibās by his saying: “I have seen my Lord in the best form.”588

585 Ernst, Ruzbihan, 29-30, 35.

586 Ibid., 36.

587 Ernst translates this with ‘divine clothing’ or ‘clothing with divinity’, Gramlich with ‘Verwirrung’,

Ballanfat with ‘equivocité’, Corbin with ‘amphibolie’, which Ernst criticizes as an “excessively abstract overtranslation.” Ernst, Ruzbihan, 35, 104; Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 133; Ballanfat, Quatre traités, 144; Henry Corbin, En Islam Iranien: Aspects spirituels et philosophiques Tome III. Les Fidèles d’amour: Shî’isme et soufisme (Paris: Gallimard, 1972), 18.

588 Baqlī, Mashrab, 119.

212

Passionate love (ʿishq) is closely intertwined with vision: it is both caused by as well as leads to the vision of God. Here a new term is introduced: exposure (badāʾ). When God, the Passionately Loved (al-Maʿshūq) also passionately loves the passionate lover (ʿāshiq), He will expose Himself to him with goodness and will show him beauty. After God has exposed

Himself to the passionate lover, he will want to see Him. God then exposes Himself even more, so that his yearning for the vision of God increases:

God is beyond appearance (badāʾ), but He wants to show to the one who loves Him the majesty of His attributes (jalāl ṣifātihi) and lights of His essence (anwār dhātihi) that are hidden from him, and all that is wanted. Regarding this God says to His beloved: “Have you not looked towards your Lord” (Q25:45). The knower (ʿārif) said: “God exposing Himself is only at the end of passionate love.”589

Rūzbihān is the only one who is explicit on the modality and form by which he beholds God in his vision of His manifestations. In Kahsf al-asrār he relates how God manifests to him according to two categories: either as a manifestation of His majesty (jalāl) and wrath (qahr), or of His beauty (jamāl) and grace (luṭf).590 Although Rūzbihān as an

Ashʿarī would never state that God actually has a body, still he corporealizes his claimed

589 Ibid., 240.

590 This division of divine attributes is common in Sufi circles. Hujwīrī also links the manifestation of

God’s beauty with longing for the vision of Him: “those whose witness in gnosis is the beauty of God continually long for vision (ruʾyat), while those whose witness is the majesty of God continually reject their own qualities, and their hearts are in the state of awe.” Hujwīrī, Kashf (trans. Nicholson),

253. Translation from Ernst, Ruzbihan, 45. For an analytical discussion of the modes and forms of divine manifestation (tajallī) in this work see Ernst, Ruzbihan, 37, 44-79. Cf. Gramlich, Der eine Gott,

136-39; Paul Nwyia, “Waqāʾiʿ al-Shaykh Rūzbihān al-Baqlī al-Shīrāzī muqṭatafāt min kitāb Kašf al- asrār wa-mukāšafāt al-anwār,” al-Mashriq 64 (1970): 385-406.

213 vision of these manifestations of God, and often chooses an explicitly bodily imagery. His embodiment of these visions of God is a process mediated by the religious and cultural environment of which he is part. Ernst has noted the references to Persian court culture in

Rūzbihān’s visions of God: he for example sees God on his roof speaking to him in Persian, or playing on drums (ṭabl), a ritual court accessory of Persian kingship, and he approaches the “court of God” that he describes as guarded like princes by angels and prophets.591 In manifestations of beauty he refers to a prophetic saying that states that the prophet saw

God in his most beautiful form.592 God also takes the form of a beautiful Turkish warrior, sometimes with a bow in his hand, sometimes with a lute; or dressed as a great Sufi master

(shaykh); as a shepherd dressed in a woolen cloak; in the form of Adam, wearing white clothes; or He appears in the form of a lion.593 One could state that these descriptions signify in a way a return to the understandings of the early nussāk, appealing to the senses of sight, hearing and touch, be it in a non-physical, metaphysical appearance. One would expect for God to appear as a young beardless or long-haired boy in his visions as well, following the ḥadīth literature that depicts God in this form, but this theme is remarkably enough absent. Ernst has suggested that Rūzbihān deliberately left this theme out, because he negatively associated it with the practice of gazing at young boys.594

5 Conclusion

All proposed modes of this-worldly vision by our Sufi authors in their non-tafsīr works can be considered to fall within Wolfson’s category of contemplative vision. This corresponds

591 Ernst, Ruzbihan, 13, 49, 57-8.

592 Baqlī, Kashf (trans. Ernst), 123.

593 Baqlī, Kashf (trans. Ernst), 18, 23, 41, 52, 54, 58, 62, 71-2, 84, 110-11, 118, 121; Ernst, Ruzbihan, 44-65.

594 Ernst, Words of Ecstasy, 108.

214 with the general trend within Sufism in this period to eschew the older idea of physical visions related to indwelling (ḥulūl) that were present in the early circles of the renunciants

(zuhhād). To reconcile this yearning to see God with the idea of a transcendent God as developed in theology they abstracted the ocular vision of God of the zuhhād to an indirect inner vision by the heart or by witnessing (mushāhada). Although the theoretical possibility of seeing God during this-worldly life by the physical eye was generally upheld, none of the

Sufis wished to claim the actual occurrence of such a physical vision that was even rejected to Moses. A contemplative vision however was considered conceivable, to differing degrees.

As we saw, al-Qushayrī is very reluctant to discuss the theme of vision, even in a contemplative mode. This stands in stark contrast with the enthusiasm of al-Daylamī and

Rūzbihān. While in the case of al-Daylamī it remains somewhat unclear whether God is perceived in forms and images within human categories of perception or whether he means an introvertive abstract vision, this is more explicit in the case of Rūzbihān: his self- described visions clearly fall within the category of cognitive contemplative vision.

In the discussion of both theologians and Sufi authors two examples keep coming back, both in the arguments of advocates and adversaries of seeing God during this-worldly life. Both the request of Moses to see God (Q7:143) and the heavenly journey of Muhammad

(Q53:1-18) return regularly in the discussions. It is to these two case studies that we turn in the next two chapters.

215 216 5 Arinī: declined at the boundary?

1 Introduction

In Chapter Two we have witnessed the centrality of the meeting with and vision of God in the hereafter in Sufi eschatological imaginations: the final boundary crossing is a crossing towards a visionary meeting with God. In Chapter Three we have seen how the first boundary crossing, Adam’s banishment from Paradise, to some authors was a deprivation of this vision. This chapter will be about an attempt to attain this vision of God in this-worldly life: Moses’ request to see God (Q7:143). It is my contention that within some Sufi understandings this story signifies an attempt to temporarily restore a paradisiacal state of vision in this world: the yearning for the vision of God promised in Paradise was so strong that they were looking for ways to have a similar experience in the current abode.595 As we shall see for some this took the form of a visionary encounter, a foretaste of what was to come in the hereafter. I will argue, however, that even for those who believed in some form of this-worldly vision the interest in the otherworldy vision remained intact, because of the mere fact that the eschatological encounter with God would be more perfect and eternal, instead of the temporary and limited this-worldly experience.

This resonates with what has been suggested by other scholars of Sufism: the possibility of a direct experiential encounter with God in this world motivates the disregard for eschatological themes other than the meeting with and vision of God. Where the meeting (liqāʾ) with God is normally an eschatological matter in Islamic theology, some Sufis

595 Gramlich even made the statement that longing for the vision is the very core of mysticism: “Dem

Mystiker geht es um die Schau: er will Gott sehen.” To support this point he quotes al-Dārānī to have answered to the question what the ʿārifīn want: “Bei Gott! Sie wollen nur das Sehen, warum Mose gebeten hat!” Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 229. Also Böwering mentions the vision of God as a basic theme in Islamic mysticism. Böwering, “Scriptural Senses,“ 353.

217 claimed such a strong this-worldly experience of this encounter that they lost all interest in the world to come. Another more intermediate attitude remained loyal to the idea that the ultimate encounter between man and God can only occur in the world to come. According to that attitude, meeting, vision and divine manifestation are all in Paradise. An experience of a this-worldly encounter is different from the otherworldly then: it is but a taste of what awaits the believer in the hereafter.596

Corresponding with my findings in the earlier chapters, I suggest that the dominance or absence of the theme of vision is one of the most significant differences between two tendencies within Sufism: on the one hand the tendency that stresses love and experiential knowledge (maʿrifa) of God, on the other hand a tendency that stresses good character and religious discipline. Influenced by doctrinal developments in theology, also within Sufism the idea of a this-worldly vision remained controversial. This led to different approaches to verse Q7:143, varying from a negation of Moses’ vision to a more complex line of thought focusing on the modality of the alleged vision. I will argue that generally speaking the ishārī understandings of the verse remained within the boundaries of kalām discussions of the same verse. Even authors who argued for the possibility of a this-worldly vision would structure the description of the modality of these visionary experiences in such a way that it would not contradict formal kalām positions.

There is another reason why the case of Moses is worth our while. Islam, like

Judaism, is generally portrayed as a religion in which God is perceived aurally rather than

596 Michael Ebstein has made this suggestion in his reading of passages on a this-worldly vision of

God in the work of Dhū al-Nūn al-Miṣrī. Michael Ebstein, “Mystical Ascensions and the Hereafter in the Here and Now: Some Notes on Eschatology in the Traditions Attributed to Dhū l-Nūn al-Miṣrī,”

HHIT International Symposium “Crossing Boundaries: Mystical and Philosophical Conceptualizations of the

Dunyā/Ākhira Relationship” (Utrecht University, 5 July 2013), accessed 18 August 2014, http://vimeo.com/84535394. Cf. Karamustafa, “Eschatology in Early Sufi Thought.”

218 visually. Believers who want to perceive God in this world are encouraged to listen to God’s word being recited, rather than making themselves an image of God.597 However, one can argue about whether this claim can be upheld in the case of Sufism as well, and whether vision does not figure more prominently than audition in Sufi thought. Sufis themselves actively reflected on this relation.598 In Islamic tradition Moses is nicknamed kalīm Allāh, the one God has spoken to. In some ḥadīths Moses is contrasted with Muhammad: while Moses heard God but was denied the vision of Him, Muhammad allegedly saw God during his heavenly journey (miʿrāj).599 These stories, then, formed models of archetypical experiences of the divine along which Sufis defined, structured, embodied and described their own alleged experiences.600 An analysis of commentaries on the story of Moses, read together with commentaries on the heavenly journey of Muhammad, is thus a good case study to understand the status and hierarchy of the senses in the Sufi imagination. In Sufism, themes related to both audition (samāʿ) and vision have been strongly present. The

597 Cf. Böwering, “From Word to Vision.”

598 For example al-Hujwīrī defends that hearing is a more important sense than seeing, even in relation to God: “If it is said that vision of God is better than hearing His word, I reply that our knowledge of God’s visibility to the faithful in Paradise is derived from hearing: it is a matter of indifference whether the understanding allows that God shall be visible or not, inasmuch as we are assured of the fact by oral tradition. Hence hearing is superior to sight.” Reynold A. Nicholson, trans., Kashf al-maḥjūb: the oldest Persian treatise on Sufism, (London: Luzac & Co., 1959), 393-94. Cf.

Gerhard Böwering, “From Word to Vision,” 207-09.

599 A transmission by Ibn ʿAbbās reads: “Intimate friendship (khilla) is for Abraham, speech (kalām) for Moses, and vision (ruʾya) for Muhammad.” Maybudī, Kashf, IX, 724. As we shall see in the next chapter this vision by Muhammad of God was disputed by conflicting traditions.

600 Cf. Chapter Three, footnote 402. On the particular case of Moses as a mystical model see Georges

C. Anawati and Louis Gardet, Mystique musulmane: aspects et tendances – expériences et techniques (Paris:

Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1968), 261-71.

219 technical vocabulary of Sufism reflects this centrality of the visual sense. When we look at early Sufi texts, such as the tafsīr of al-Sulamī or the early handbooks of the likes of al-Sarrāj

(d. 377/988), al-Qushayrī and al-Hujwīrī (d. 465/1077), we see that a refined terminology was developed to describe the experience of vision (mostly, but not always) of God. We find terms as ruʾya (vision), naẓar (gazing), ʿiyān and muʿāyana (eye-vision), tajallī (manifestation), shuhūd and mushāhada (witnessing), and if we dig a little deeper we can even find discussion about the truthfulness and possibility of these visionary experiences among early Sufis.601

By means of the case studies of Moses and Muhammad in the next two chapters I shall try to shed new light on these discussions, mainly to understand if and how these two functioned as exemplary figures for the claimed visual experiences of Sufis.

2 Arinī anẓur ilayk: Q7:143 between exegesis and theology

Now that we have formed a broader understanding of the various positions on the vision of

God in the former chapter, let us have a closer look at the verse we are dealing with in this chapter, and its role in the debates on the vision of God. The verse is part of a series of larger narratives in Surah al-Aʿrāf relating to the struggle of Moses with Pharaoh and the subsequent exodus of Moses and his people from Egypt. The verse describes a scene that takes place when Moses leaves behind his people for a retreat of forty nights, giving the temporary leadership over them to his brother Aaron (Q7:142). The verse reads as follows:

When Moses came to Our appointed time and his Lord spoke to him, he said, ‘My Lord, show [Yourself] to me, [so] I [can] look at You.’ He said, “You shall not (lan) see Me, but look to the mountain. If it remains in its place you shall see Me.” When his

601 Hujwīrī, Kashf, 373, 381-82, 389; Sarrāj Luma, 68-9, 335, 350, 96, 116-17. For a list of Sufi terms alluding to visionary experience see Marcia K. Hermansen, “Visions as ‘Good to Think’: A Cognitive

Approach to Visionary Experience in Islamic Sufi Thought,” Religion 27 (1997): 27-30.

220 Lord manifested Himself to the mountain He made it into rubble, and Moses fell unconscious. And when he stood up, he said: “Glory to You, I repent to You, and I am the first of the believers.”602

Although theologians generally agreed that the verse implies that Moses indeed did not see

God, they disagreed on the possibility of the vision. For opponents of the idea of a vision of

God this verse was used as a confirmation of their dialectic conclusion that God is not seen.

Proponents of the idea had to find a way to interpret this verse in such a way that it did not rule out the vision of God categorically. A couple of issues generally concerned theological exegetes of this verse: the reason for God’s refusal to show Himself to Moses, the meaning of the future negation particle lan, the modality of God’s manifestation (tajallī) to the mountain, the reason for Moses’ repentance and his declaration of belief.

The Muʿtazila saw an obvious confirmation of the impossibility of seeing God in the verse. They were, however, confronted with the question how the principle of impeccability of prophets should be reconciled with the request of Moses. The Muʿtazilī exegete al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1134) offers a fair representation of typical Muʿtazilī concerns when explaining the verse in his Qurʾān commentary al-Kashshāf. After having confirmed that Moses heard God’s created speech, a typical

Muʿtazilī standpoint, he states that by his request arinī (show me) Moses asked to be made capable of seeing God (ijʿalnī mutamakkinan min ruʾyatika). On the question how a knowledgeable and impeccable prophet could ask something that he knew not to be possible, he responds that it was only a rhetorical question to reproach and silence the insolent from among his people who had provokingly asked to see God on several occasions (Q2:55; 4:153).603

602 Q7:143. Translation is mine.

603 Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-Zamakhsharī, Al-Kashshāf ʿan ḥaqāʾiq al-tanzīl wa-ʿuyūn al- aqāwīl fī wujūh al-taʾwīl (Beirut: Dār al-maʿrifa, n.d.), II, 111-16; Anthony K. Tuft, “The Ruʾyā

Controversy and the Interpretation of Qurʾān Verse VII (al-Aʿrāf): 143,” Hamdard Islamicus 6 no. 3

(1983): 21.

221 For al-Ashʿarī the verse was a confirmation of the possibility of the vision of God rather than a negation, despite Moses being refused the vision. The fact that the impeccable prophet Moses requested to see God is a proof that it is possible in itself. As an impeccable prophet who has proper knowledge of God he would not ask for something impossible, and he would never falsely assume that God can be seen. He also holds God’s statement that

Moses will see God if the mountain remains stable to be a proof for the possibility of seeing

God. God would not make something impossible conditional upon something possible, al-

Ashʿarī reasons. Since the mountain remaining stable is theoretically possible, so must also the vision of God be possible.604 The particle lan, indicating a negation in the future tense

(you shall not), does not represent a universal denial according to the Ashʿarīs. What is meant is that Moses shall not see God in his present life.605

Al-Māturīdī dedicates quite some space to the verse in his Qurʾān commentary, and takes it as an opportunity to expose his ideas on the ruʾya controversy beside the context of this particular verse as well. First, he refutes some Muʿtazilī positions on the verse, for example that Moses did not request the vision for himself, but to reproach his people. He considers this far-fetched and believes that Moses would have formulated his request differently if that had been his goal. His own argument in favor of the possibility of the vision is similar to al-Ashʿarī’s: Moses as a prophet cannot be so ignorant to ask something concerning God that is impossible. His request is a proof of the possibility of the vision.606 In the chapter on the vision of God in his eschatological treatise Ḥādī al-arwāḥ Ibn al-Qayyim mentions seven arguments, mostly linguistic, some lightly dialectic, that can be considered as representative for the Ḥanbalī-traditionist standpoint, and are very close to the Ashʿarī and Māturīdī arguments: (1) Moses would never ask something that is impossible; (2) God

604 Tuft, “Ruʾyā Controversy,” 13-14.

605 Ibid., 18.

606 Māturīdī, Taʾwīlāt, VI, 47-59.

222 did not disapprove of his question; had it been impossible, He would have disapproved of it;

(3) God responded with You shall not see Me, not with “You cannot see Me” or “I am not seen” or “to see Me is impossible”; this shows that God can be seen, but that humans do not have the strength for it in this-worldly life; (4) if the mountain cannot bear God’s manifestation, a human in this life surely cannot; (5) it is possible that God would have left the mountain in its place; He would not have linked something impossible to something possible; (6) that

God manifests to the mountain is a proof of the possibility of vision in itself; (7) Moses could hear God directly; if hearing is possible, then vision must be possible a fortiori; Moses asked

God to see Him after he had heard Him; by hearing Him he realized it was possible to see

Him as well.607

To understand how the Sufi commentaries are embedded in their broader religious context we will once again have a look at the major commentaries written by the school of

Nishapur. What becomes clear from them is that no exegete would explain the verse in such a way that any type of vision, either with the eye or with the heart, actually took place.

Most of the aforementioned arguments appear in one way or another in these commentaries as well. As al-Māwardī’s commentary shows, Muʿtazilī ideas were still current in Nishapur and the controversy over ruʾya had socio-political significance in the strife between different scholarly factions and their patron networks. It was not merely an intellectual issue.

Al-Thaʿlabī shies away from the explicit theological reasoning of the commentators discussed above, and confines himself to implicit theology by quoting a score of earlier exegetes who all stated that the negation lan tarānī (You shall not see Me) only applies to this world, but that God will be seen in the hereafter. Who sees God in this world, will die because the experience is too overwhelming to bear. He lets Moses respond to God’s refusal

607 Ibn al-Qayyim, Ḥādī, 196-97.

223 in a way that resonates with a Sufi motif of love and longing.608 Hearing the speech of God arouses an uncontrollable yearning in Moses for the vision of Him: “I heard Your speech and long to look at You. To look at You and to die is more beloved to me than to live and not seeing You.” 609 Here, the visual is given a higher rank in the sensual hierarchy than the aural. The audition of God is only a ‘prelude’ as it were for the true enjoyment of the lover of God: the vision of Him. The passion to reach this vision is so strong that it is unbearable to wait until the hereafter, to the extent that Moses is even ready to die for it.610

Al-Māwardī has a remarkably short commentary on the verse compared to the other exegetes so far considered, and he does not use it to polemicize about the question of the vision of God. He gives a fair overview of the positions apparently current in Nishapur, with a slight emphasis on the Muʿtazilī positions.611 Without problematizing or choosing sides he summarizes three positions, the first two being Muʿtazilī positions: (1) that Moses wanted to silence the insolent among his people who requested to see God; (2) that he knew that it was impossible through reasoning, but that he wanted to have necessary knowledge of it, that is, confirmation by a divine revelation; (3) the position transmitted by al-Rabīʿ, al-Ḥasan al-

Baṣrī and al-Suddī that the vision in this world is possible and thus the request by Moses as well. As for al-Māwardī’s own view, that the mountain cannot bear the vision, he holds to be

608 The exact relationship of al-Thaʿlabī to Sufism is not yet clarified. It is certain that he studied with al-Sulamī, and that he incorporated Sufi explanations current in his milieu into his Qurʾān commentary. See Saleh, Formation, 20, 53-66.

609 Thaʿlabī, Kashf, IV, 275.

610 That also the overwhelming experience of God’s word could lead to death according to al-Thaʿlabī is indicated in his work Qatlā al-qurʾān, a collection of stories of pious people who died while hearing or reciting the Qurʾān. Whether this is a typical Sufi theme or a more general expression of piety is matter of debate. See Saleh, Formation, 59-65.

611 Al-Māwardī was indeed criticized by Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 771/1370) in his Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿiyya for having Muʿtazilī leanings. EI2, s.v. Al-Māwardī, VI, 869 (C. Brockelmann).

224 a proof that man cannot bear it either. On the modality of God’s manifestation (tajallī) to the mountain he mentions four positions: (1) that He appeared through his signs (āyāt) that He made occur in the mountain to show to the other mountains; (2) that He only showed from

His heavenly kingdom (malakūt) what would make the mountain crumble, because the world would not have remained if He had shown the full kingdom of heaven (malakūt al- samāʾ); (3) that He only showed the amount of a little finger of His throne, or that He showed His command (amr) to the mountain, which was enough to crush it. For the repentance of Moses he again mentions several options, some Muʿtazilī, some Sunni: he repented for asking without awaiting permission; he repented for believing that a this- worldly vision was possible; he repented as a manner of praise of God, as is the habit of believers.612 He does not mention anything about the vision in the hereafter at all, nor takes a conclusive position on the issue of the vision of God: he seems to be on his guard, perhaps in an attempt to shun controversy. From this we may deduce that the controversy over the vision of God was vivid in Nishapur, and that al-Māwardī did not mention it to avoid a direct confrontation with his colleagues and the authorities in the highly polarized and politicized scholarly climate between the Muʿtazilīs and Ashʿarīs in Nishapur.

Al-Wāḥidī is a typical representative of Ashʿarī readings of the verse, proving his theological conviction that the vision is possible by focusing on the linguistic particularities of the verse. He stresses that Moses requested to see God and nothing else. From a linguistic analysis of the verse he concludes that the verse cannot be interpreted otherwise. He subsequently quotes the Ashʿarī position that the request of Moses itself is a proof of the possibility of the vision of God. Also God’s answer You shall not see Me is a proof of this. Were

612 Māwardī, Nukat, II, 257.

225 it impossible to see God, He would have answered “I cannot be seen.”613 You shall not see Me only pertains to this world: in the hereafter God will be seen. It is also a proof that Moses requested the vision for himself, not for his people, as some Muʿtazilīs believed. Otherwise

God would have answered with “They shall not see Me.”614

Concluding, we can state that there is great diversity in the interpretation of the verse, and in theological arguments in favor of or against the possibility of this-worldly vision. Although all seem to have agreed that Moses indeed did not see God, not everybody used the verse to rule out the possibility of a this-worldly vision. On the contrary, for some the fact that Moses as an impeccable prophet requested the vision, is considered the most important proof that God can indeed be seen in this world. Let us now have a look at Sufi explanations of the verse, and how these broader theological issues reverberate in them.

3 Polyvalence: the early Sufi readings in al-Sulamī

The commentary that al-Sulamī offers on Q7:143 is remarkably more extensive than on verses in the rest of his work. This shows that already in early Sufism this particular verse played an important role in legitimizing a sensory relation to God, both auditory and visionary, taking Moses as an exemplary mystic, thus provoking more commentary. What also catches the eye is the relative dominance of ‘ecstatic’ readings of the verse, and the more cryptic and mystical nature of the presented meanings than elsewhere: Moses apparently represented a mystical model of a more ecstatic and esoteric kind. Also, the early authorities quoted by al-Sulamī show an interesting degree of different perspectives

613 He compares it with the request to eat a stone or an apple. The first is impossible, the second possible. For the stone one would say “The stone cannot to be eaten,” while in the case of an apple one would say “You shall not eat the apple.” Wāḥidī, Basīṭ, IX, 333.

614 Ibid., IX, 331-35.

226 on the verse, which al-Sulamī all mentions on an equal footing: the commentary is truly polyvalent.

The structure of the commentary can be divided in a couple of stages, corresponding with the structure of the verse. Firstly, in the verse preceding the request of the vision al-

Sulamī offers some quotes that refer to the stage of seclusion of forty days before Moses reaches the high state in which he requests the vision. Secondly, the modality of the speech of God to Moses is described, and the state that Moses was perceived to be in when he received the speech. Thirdly, Moses’ request to see God following the hearing of His speech is discussed. The passage ends, as does the verse itself, with God’s manifestation to the mountain, Moses’ fainting and repentance.

This structure of seclusion, speech and request of vision also determines the sayings attributed to Jaʿfar on the verse. These sayings figure most prominently in al-Sulamī’s redaction and therefore deserve some extra attention. Jaʿfar denies the vision of God by

Moses, and stresses that the vision of God does not occur in this world. He does not try to find an exegetical solution for the refusal uttered in the verse, and accepts it as a given fact.

However, Moses seems to have come close in his mystical state, transcending his human form in the process of receiving God’s speech. According to Jaʿfar Moses’ forty-day seclusion leads to his withdrawal from his form (rasm) and boundary (ḥadd): he is elevated beyond his human condition. In that state of being outside his human condition he receives God’s speech. Jaʿfar holds this to be a proof that the attainment of the way stations of Lordship

(manāzil al-rubūbiyya) can only take place when one is outside of one’s human forms (rusūm al-bashariyya). The reception of God’s speech also takes place in a concept of time that is different from the time to which God has subdued the rest of creation. In this state Moses himself is the medium of the speech: God made the speech ‘rest’ on Moses, and He spoke to him through his inner state (nafsiyya) and servanthood (ʿubūdiyya), “through the deepest

227 realities of his praiseworthy qualities.”615 This experience of hearing God’s speech was so strong that Moses’ selfhood disappeared. Also, as a consequence of the speech nothing would ever grow or live on the mountain again. Jaʿfar uses the verse to establish a hierarchy between the prophets: Muhammad is higher in the hierarchy than Moses, because he had a more direct encounter with God’s attribute of speech. While Moses heard God through himself, and thus heard his own attribute of speech rather than God’s, Muhammad did hear

God’s attribute of speech directly. This explains, states Jaʿfar, the different locations on which they were granted the speech: while Moses heard God at the mount Sinai,

Muhammad reached as far as the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary (sidrat al-muntahā), the highest place of creation, and the ultimate boundary between Creator and created.616

This experience of hearing God, and of seeing the apparition (khayāl) of His speech in his heart, arouses the desire in Moses to see God, and makes him utter his request. To Jaʿfar it is clear why God refuses this: Moses is incapable of seeing God because he is transient

(fānin) while God is subsistent (bāqin). The subsistent is unattainable for the transient, and

Moses would not be able to bear the vision, with death as the result. To be able to see God with direct eye-vision (muʿāyana), one first has to reach a state of subsistence (baqāʾ) by his

Lord, a state apparently not granted to Moses. God therefore distracts Moses by having him look at the mountain. The mountain, then, receives knowledge of beholding God (ʿilm al- iṭṭilāʿ), by which it is scattered.617 It ceases to exist by the mere mentioning of the beholding of God, while Moses faints by seeing the mountain become scattered. When Moses regains

615 Mayer, Spiritual Gems, 38.

616 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 237-42; Nwyia, “Tafsīr mystique,” 196-97; Mayer, Spiritual Gems, 37-40.

617 Mayer translates ʿilm al-iṭṭilāʿ with “knowledge of beholding (God) (imminently).” Mayer, Spiritual

Gems, 39.

228 consciousness and declares that he is the first of the believers, according to Jaʿfar he means that he is the first to believe that God is not seen in this world.618

Jaʿfar is not the only authority al-Sulamī mentions. Regarding the first stage, Abū

Bakr b. Ṭāhir al-Abharī (d. c. 330/941-2) points out that the forty days mentioned in Q7:142

(We appointed Moses thirty nights and completed it with ten more) were a period of fasting with the intent of speaking with God. It was a special God-given blessed time (awqāt al-karāma) in which Moses did not become hungry because the anticipation of him standing before his

Lord made him forget about eating and drinking.619 An anonymous source “from among the later generations” depicts the meeting between Moses and God as a meeting between lovers. Promises of lovers are even a pleasure when broken.620

After that the focus shifts to the nature of Moses’ meeting with his Lord and His speaking to Moses. As in the sayings of Jaʿfar, it becomes clear that also the other authorities deem an absolute seclusion of Moses from the rest of creation necessary to reach this aural meeting. Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz points out how God only spoke to Moses in the deepest of the night and made him invisible for all other conscious beings so that the speech could be exclusively for Moses. The speech of God, explains al-Qurashī, comes to

Moses through himself. Had He spoken to him “in the full scope of His greatness,” that is through Himself instead of through Moses, Moses would have become annihilated. Al-

Qurashī thus shows great similarity to the ideas of Jaʿfar on the matter.621 Al-Ḥusayn also describes the process of seclusion from the rest of creation, of Moses transcending his human form and of receiving God’s speech:

618 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 237-42; Nwyia, “Tafsīr mystique,” 196-97; Mayer, Spiritual Gems, 37-40.

619 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 237.

620 This is further illustrated by the following line of poetry: “Let me wait and postpone, promise me and do not fulfill.” Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 237.

621 Ibid., I, 238-39.

229

He [God] removed [the sense of] temporal and spatial order from him, and he came to God according to what He invited him to, and what He wanted him for, and what He placed upon him, and He brought him forth from Himself, and made Himself apparent to him, by taking away every pain, energy, challenge, difficulties and efforts. When no remainder remained for him by which he could be hindered, he was lifted to the station of [face-to-face] encounter (muwājaha) and conversation (mukhāṭaba), and He made his tongue loose for request and demand.622

Also al-Wāsiṭī holds that Moses had disappeared from his normal human nature when receiving God’s speech and being in his immediate presence. When he realized the sweetness of God’s speech he requested His unveiling.623

Yet another quote, by an unidentified authority, similarly describes how God singles

Moses out from creation to receive his speech. This unidentified author also makes it lead to the request of the vision, which is then subsequently granted, be it indirectly. Because of

Moses’ request to God elsewhere in the Qurʾān (Q20:25-6) to widen his breast and ease his affair, God makes him reach the highest station. This station is coming to God through God

(al-mujīʾ ilā Allāh bi’Llāh), a state in which all other states disappear from the subject. This state, the anonymous author holds, is meant with When Moses came to Our appointed time and his Lord spoke to him. Only in this elevated state, the highest and most honorable state even,

Moses hears God’s speech directly, invisible “from every eye, seeing and being seen, and from every form, being and coming forth, except for the one speaking and the one being spoken to.” In this state, hearing what was never heard before, he made a request never made before: to see God. The subsequent denial of the vision in the Qurʾānic verse, followed by the imperative to look at the mountain, is not seen as a denial per se. In the perspective of this anonymous author a form of vision is already granted before his request, be it

622 Ibid., I, 238.

623 Ibid., I, 240.

230 through creation: once Moses returns from the highest state he was in, he sees none other than God before him, and sees Him in everything that can be looked and gazed at (fī kulli manẓūr wa-mubṣar). When Moses experiences this indirect vision, he requests God to show

Himself so that he can look at Him. It does not matter to Moses in what God will show

Himself, because he will not see any other than God in from of him, and God will not leave him anymore after this state that he has reached.624 This is a good example of the state of

‘Gott vor Augen haben’ mentioned by Gramlich. Thus, by imagining the vision as a vision through creation, the official dogma that God is not seen in this world remains intact: the claimed experience of the mystic does not exceed the boundaries of his tradition, and is in a way still conditioned by it.

Al-Sulamī continues with the next part of the verse that contains the actual request and refusal: “He said, My Lord, show [Yourself] to me, [so] I [can] look at You. He said, You shall not see Me, but look to the mountain.” In the commentary that follows he does not name a source and also does not imply that it is a quote of an anonymous source: it could very well be one of the very few instances in his entire commentary that he gives his own opinion, although this cannot be verified. The passage explains that only the hearts of the knowers

(ʿārifīn) that have attained experiential knowledge of God, supported with the lights of God- granted miracles (karāma) are capable of carrying and enduring the witnessing (mushāhada) of God. This is a very exceptional state that human beings normally cannot endure. The author therefore reassures his readers that the hearts that have reached this state of witnessing God, are in fact not witnessing through themselves: it is through God Himself that they endure the witnessing of God, and it is God who carries their hearts at that moment.625 This corresponds with the commentary of Jaʿfar in which he states that to be able to see God one first has to reach a state of subsistence (baqāʾ) in God: something that is

624 Ibid., I, 239.

625 Ibid., I, 239-40.

231 transient can not reach the subsistent. Here something similar is proposed: when the heart witnesses God, the heart is under complete control of God, such that the heart is no longer an independent actor. It is God Himself who witnesses God:

Subsequently, when those hearts have carried Me, and have endured the witnessing of Me, then I am the one carrying Me, none other, because through Me he carried Me, and through Me he endured the witnessing of Me. There is no witnessing of God except for Him.626

A similar view is expressed by an anonymous quote, be it not through subsistence in God, but through annihilation (fanāʾ) in God. When Moses requests the vision, God answers that he shall not see Him while he is in human form (bashariyya). Only in a state of annihilation is

Moses capable of receiving the manifestation of God. Moses then requests his selfhood and his humanity to be annihilated (afninī ʿannī wa-ʿan bashariyyatī). Therefore God makes him faint, and then manifests to him.627

For al-Ḥusayn the refusal of God to show Himself is indeed a refusal. He points out how God comforts Moses by saying but look at the mountain so that he does not depart in a state of desparate yearning for God, but has something to tranquilize him a bit. Al-Wāsiṭī stresses the temporary character of God’s refusal: it is refused for now, but not for eternity.

When God manifests Himself, it is only by a measure of His attributes, it is not His complete essence by which He manifests.628

Al-Sulamī thus presents a plurality of opinions, that show a rich variety of approaches to the verse, ranging from denials of the vision by Moses, to an embrace of indirect modes of vision. It has become clear that already in the time of al-Sulamī it was a

626 Ibid., I, 240.

627 Ibid., I, 242.

628 Ibid., I, 240-41. Cf. Laury Silvers, A Soaring Minaret: Abu Bakr al-Wasiti and the Rise of Baghdadi Sufism

(Albany: SUNY Press, 2010), 75-6.

232 matter of controversy, and different positions among mystics were present from the early formative period of Sufism. The hierarchy between audition and vision was already established by the time of al-Sulamī as well: the longing for the vision follows upon hearing

God and is deemed a higher form of contact with the divine which is more difficult to attain and demands a higher spiritual state.

4 From sobriety to intoxication: al-Qushayrī reading Moses

As described before, to al-Qushayrī it is clear that the vision of God is only granted to the believers in the otherworld. There is no vision in this world. Consequently, in his commentary he denies the vision of God by Moses: the allusive (ishārī) reading of the verse never escapes a solid Ashʿarī framework. However, it would be incorrect to say that al-

Qushayrī’s reading of the verse is a ‘sober’ Sufi reading. Where his reading of the banishment of Adam was dominated by ‘sober’ Sufi pedagogical considerations, his reading of the request of Moses takes a more ‘intoxicated’ turn, interwoven with motives of love mysticism. This already becomes clear from the very beginning of the passage, in the language al-Qushayrī chooses to describe the state in which Moses went to his appointment with God: “Moses came in the way of those yearning [for God], the way of those madly in love, Moses came without Moses, Moses came and nothing of Moses remained for Moses.”629

For al-Qushayrī Moses represents the highest state of piety: “The one yearning the most strongly of all creation for the Beloved is the most near to the Beloved, this is Moses (peace be upon him).”630

On one point al-Qushayrī diverges from a typical Ashʿarī position. Whereas most

Ashʿarī theologians would state that Moses would not have asked something that is

629 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, I, 564.

630 Ibid., I, 565.

233 impossible, al-Qushayrī considers the request of the vision of God as a sort of slip of the tongue. He cites a number of anonymous authorities –not mentioned by al-Sulamī- to stress the idea that Moses’ request was a slip of the tongue that occurred because he was overtaken by a state of ecstasy (wajd) and intoxication (sukr) after hearing the speech of

God. The speech alone did not satisfy him, and he wanted more: “When people drink more and more, their thirst increases, and when people are increasingly enthralled by love, they yearn more and more.”631 So overwhelmed was he by God’s speech, relates al-Qushayrī, that he forgot all the things he intended to say to God on behalf of his people and could only utter Show [Yourself] to me, [so] I [can] look at You .632

Also the refusal by God is interpreted by invoking the symbolism of an ecstatic yearning. The refusal of the vision hurts Moses, and to look at the mountain is difficult for him, because if he cannot look at God, he does not want to see anything else. Yet still he obeys God and thereafter, when back in a state of sobriety (ṣaḥw), he repents. This repentance is the best replacement for the vision.633 Al-Qushayrī does not pass an explicit judgment on whether a state of sobriety is to be preferred over intoxication, and the fact that a prophet apparently reached this level of ecstasy most likely means that he did not reject it. But the fact that he closes the narrative with repentance instead of the vision might be a hint that he suggested to his readers, most probably his direct pupils, to strive for that which is attainable for all believers in this world. For a moment al-Qushayrī has shown another side, but in the end he returns to the sober Sufi pedagogue that we know so well from the larger part of his commentary.

631 Ibid.

632 Ibid.

633 Ibid.

234 5 Vision of the heart as a foretaste of Paradise: Maybudī

Maybudī’s conventional commentary (separated from the Sufi commentary) gives a clear and unequivocal answer to the question of the vision: it is forbidden for Moses to see God in this world, and he can only attain it after death. Maybudī cites several well-known traditions to support this, and mentions the most important theological arguments why it’s not existent in this world, only in the hereafter. He also defends the Sunni position against the Muʿtazilīs with the typical arguments discussed earlier.634 Then, the Sufi commentary neatly follows the viewpoint that the vision was not granted to Moses. But also in the case of Maybudī this does not lead to a sober understanding of the story. He chooses to interpret the story in the language of love mysticism: Moses becomes drunk from the potion of love in his unique aural encounter with God.

Maybudī contrasts Moses’ meeting with his Lord with an earlier meeting at the burning bush. The meeting at the burning bush (Q28:29) was a journey of seeking, while the meeting at this mountain is one of joy. In this meeting, Moses came without a sense of selfhood, having lost himself in his inmost self (sirr). Drunk from the potion of love that he drank from the cup of sanctity, the words Show [Yourself] to me boiled up inside him. Burning from having heard God’s speech in a state of intimate speech (munājāt), still drunk from

“the wine of yearning” (sharāb-i shawq), he finally exclaimed Show [Yourself] to me, [so] I [can] look at You . After this exclamation the angels rebuked him. They pointed out that a lowly creature like Moses, a child of menstruating women, created from dust and water, is not qualified to see his Lord. They claimed that there is no chance for a created being to achieve communion (wiṣāl) with the ever-existing God. The angels were then commanded to leave

Moses alone, since Moses could not really help having uttered this, having lost all restraint in his state of being in love.635

634 Maybudī, Kashf, III, 723-28.

635 Ibid., III, 731-32.

235 Annabel Keeler has suggested in her study of Maybudī’s commentary that the stories of Moses and Muhammad serve to establish a hierarchy between the prophets: shortcomings and weaknesses of earlier prophets are there to show the elevated rank of

Muhammad.636 Keeler mentions a set of quotes related to the vision of God to support this.

Maybudī states that in this life “lovers will have only a glimpse of the lights of those secrets and a whiff of the perfume of those traces. Only Muhammad had the capacity for direct witnessing (ʿiyān).”637 Other servants, and also Moses, have to wait for the hereafter: “Today there can only be a witnessing of the heart (mushāhada-yi dil), tomorrow there will be direct witnessing with the eyes (muʿāyana-yi chashm).”638 The true vision will only come after death, and it is this hope that will make death bearable for the believer: “Everyone hopes for something, and the hope of the mystic is for the vision [of God] (dīdār). Everyone loves life, and death is difficult for them, but the mystic needs death for the sake of vision.”639

6 Vision through annihilation (fanāʾ): al-Daylamī

Like the authorities quoted by al-Sulamī, al-Daylamī first stresses the importance of the forty-day seclusion and fast as a preparation to reach the right state to speak with God. He points out how the Sufi practice of a forty-day fast is based on this verse. Al-Daylamī follows a line similar to the Sufi authorities of al-Sulamī that this seclusion and fasting brings Moses to a state outside his human condition so that he is able to reach communion (wuṣūl) with

God. Once outside his human condition during his forty-day fast, Moses does not feel hunger or thirst because these are characteristics of humans and animals, characteristics

636 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 210, 244-47.

637 Maybudī, Kashf, V, 165; Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 195.

638 Maybudī, Kashf, V, 384; Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 195.

639 Maybudī, Kashf, III, 732-33; Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 195.

236 that he has surpassed. Al-Daylamī holds God’s speech with Moses to be an outward speech; different from the inward speech or intimate conversation (munājāt) that God’s friends

(awliyāʾ) have with God through their inmost self (sirr). He quotes al-Sulamī’s citation of Abū

Saʿīd al-Kharrāz to stress that Moses was singled out from the rest of creation when he received this speech.640

On the issue of this-worldly vision al-Daylamī stays within the boundaries of the theoretical positions embraced in his treatise Jawāhir al-asrār: the physical vision is denied, but a spiritual vision may have been granted to Moses. He cites several quotes from al-

Sulamī’s commentary negating a vision by Moses (Ibn ʿAṭāʾ, al-Ḥusayn and Jaʿfar). The vision that Moses requests from God is a vision with the physical eye, as opposed to a vision by the eye of the heart and the inmost self (sirr) that is granted to all prophets and friends

(awliyāʾ) of God. With the physical eye they cannot see God in this world. This is also the meaning of God’s refusal by You shall not see Me: following the conventional interpretation al-Daylamī holds this to pertain to this world, not to the hereafter. He states that Moses repents for asking to see God while God did not want him to see Him. Had he known that, he would not have asked. The meaning of I am first of the believers, is that “no one sees You except whom You will and with whom You are content seeing You.”641 A last anonymous quote, not mentioned by al-Sulamī, explains that Moses was only allowed to speak with God, not to see Him, because vision is emanation of the essence (ishrāq al-dhāt), while speech is merely one of His attributes. Humans have ways to attain His attributes, while God’s essence is unattainable to them.642

640 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 57b.

641 Ibid., folio 58b-59a. He does mention a minority opinion that Moses has seen God in this world at another occasion, allegedly referred to in Q32:23. This opinion is not mentioned in any of the other commentaries discussed.

642 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 58b-59a.

237 Al-Daylamī disagrees with this, and does not rule out a this-worldly vision of God’s essence: “I hold that the vision of the essence [of God] (ruʾyat al-dhāt) is not impossible for the servants. Impossible is to have an encompassing vision, knowledge and its likes.” So the vision of God is possible, albeit in an imperfect way: the human faculties or the human mind cannot encompass God. In favor of such a non-physical vision of God’s essence he mentions one quote from al-Sulamī’s commentary that can be interpreted as an endorsement of a non-physical vision by Moses, in a state of annihilation (fanāʾ):

When the vision was requested, he said: “You shall not see Me in your human condition (bashariyya).” So he said: “Annihilate me and my human condition.” So He annihilated him, and God was without parallel in His essence (dhāt), and He manifested Himself to Moses in his unconscious condition. (…) He annihilated him until he saw Him, then He brought him back to His attributes.643

Al-Daylamī shows his sympathy to this idea of a vision through annihilation: “This is not far-fetched to me.”644

7 Indirect vision through God’s attributes and acts: Rūzbihān

Moses appears a couple of times in Rūzbihān’s visionary autobiography Kashf al-asrār. In one of his visionary descriptions he for example relates:

I sought God (glory be to him) at dawn on this night, and he spoke to me as he spoke to Moses there [at mount Sinai], and several mountains split open. I saw in Mount Sinai a window in the mountain itself on the east side. The Truth (glory be to him) manifested himself to me from the window, and said, “Thus I caused myself to appear to Moses.” I saw Moses as though he saw the Most high, and he fell from the

643 Ibid., folio 58b.

644 Ibid.

238 mountain, intoxicated, to the foot of the mountain.645

This description shows that according to Rūzbihān God did indeed visually appear to Moses, albeit not directly, but through a window in the mountain. In another vision he describes how God descends Mount Sinai in the dress of a great Sufi master, whose wrath makes the mountain melt. Subsequently He disappears, reappears, disappears again etc., to finally say

“Thus I did to Moses.”646 Rūzbihān thus claimed to be able to experience the speech and vision of God himself as Moses did. Moses has become the prophetic model for his own experience.

What does this mean for his interpretation of the story of Moses in his Qurʾān commentary? The tafsīr of Rūzbihān is the lengthiest in terms of the commentary on this particular verse. It is also, again, by far the most difficult to understand, and apparently also the most ambiguous on the question of the vision. Rūzbihān creates complex solutions to the problem of the vision, and offers a couple of different modes of vision.

Like al-Qushayrī and Maybudī, Rūzbihān states that the request of the vision emanated from a state of intoxication, ecstasy and love evoked by the experience of hearing

God. He cites the same anonymous quotes as al-Qushayrī to this extent.647 But he goes even further than that. The request of the vision of God does not only follow upon an audition, but also on a different kind of indirect vision of God. He states:

Had he not seen Him on the station of clothing (iltibās) in the vision of every atom from the intellect (al-ʿaql) to the earth (al-tharā) from the reflection of existence, he would not have found the way to request the witnessing of the unadulterated (al- ṣirf). Therefore the vision (al-ruʾya) has become necessary.648

645 Baqlī, Kashf (trans. Ernst), 92.

646 Ibid., 22.

647 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, I, 463-64.

648 Ibid., I, 462.

239

This understanding of a vision through creation preceding the request of a direct vision of

God’s essence comes close to the statement of the earlier discussed anonymous authority from Sulamī’s commentary, which also stated that the request of vision followed on a vision of God through creation. Rūzbihān verbatim quotes this saying:

He saw God in everything visible to him (…), and when these states were realized for him, he said “My Lord show yourself to me so I can look at You,” because in everything seen I return to you, meaning, show me what You wish, and I will not see any other than You in front of me.649

He presents yet another mode of seeing God. While Moses is still Moses –that is, not in a state of annihilation (fanāʾ) - he is not able to see God in terms of His quality of eternity.

Therefore God commands him to look to a created thing like himself, that is, the mountain:

God has made the mountain a reflection of His action (fiʿl), and He manifested (tajalla) Himself in terms of His attribute (ṣifa) to His specific act (fiʿl khāṣṣ), and subsequently to the mountain. Moses saw the beauty of eternity (jamāl al-qidam) in the reflection of the mountain and fainted, because he reached his goal commensurate with his state. Had He manifested Himself to Moses in His pure form (ṣirfan), Moses would have become fine dust. And had He manifested Himself to the mountain in His pure form, the mountain would have burnt to the seventh earth. Rather, He manifested Himself to the mountain in terms of the essence of greatness (ʿayn al-ʿaẓama) and the sublimity of eternity (subuḥāt al-azaliyya).650

Moses cannot bear the vision of God’s pure essence, and is diverted to a vision of the reflection of God’s attributes and acts. Even that makes him faint.

649 Ibid., I, 463. Cf. Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, I, 239.

650 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, I, 465.

240 Rūzbihān offers more sayings like this, not only focused on Moses, but making this a general rule for believers: some of the believers have reached such a high state that they see none but God in creation, from the throne to the earth (min al-ʿarsh ilā al-tharā). His beauty and majesty are manifest in creation, and reach the eyes through the heart. He quotes ‘one of those madly in love’ as having said: “I did not look at anything, without seeing God in it.”651 This comes close to the concept of tajallī as later developed in the schools of Ibn ʿArabī and Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrā not long after Rūzbihān.

Another mode of vision that Rūzbihān presents is a vision with the eye of the heart and spirit. God manifests Himself to them with His beauty and majesty. The heart can bear this manifestation, because it is created from the light of His angelic realm (malakūt), and imprinted with the light of His realm of might (jabarūt).652 He connects this mode of vision with a verse from surah al-Najm, the heart did not lie about what it saw (Q53:11) which in tafsīr literature is considered to be about the miʿrāj of Muhammad. Moses, he states, requested the vision with his naked eye, while his eye was veiled from his heart. Therefore he could not directly see God. The heart of Muhammad, however, was one with his eye when he witnessed the beauty of God. Therefore he saw God with the heart and the eye.653 This way he establishes a hierarchy between the vision of the heart by Moses and the vision of the naked eye by Muhammad in the night of his ascension: Muhammad’s vision is more complete, corresponding with his higher rank as a prophet and mystical model.

651 Ibid., I, 466.

652 Carl Ernst explains malakūt as “locus for his visionary encounters with angels, prophets, and God” and jabarūt as “locus for experiencing the wrathful and powerful manifestations of the Attributes of majesty.” Ernst, Ruzbihan, 31.

653 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, I, 466.

241 8 Conclusion

Again we have witnessed how relatively confined the genealogy of the Sufi commentary tradition is in this particular period. Although quotes from al-Sulamī’s redaction and to some extent al-Qushayrī do indeed reappear in later commentaries, they do not per se determine the course and content of the later commentaries. Their new ideas are not only given against the backdrop of already existing opinions. There is a great deal of new, independent material in each of the later commentaries, and the authors are clearly not afraid to be inventive and introduce new ideas and concepts independently of existing traditions, and also relatively independently of the conventional text-based and theological tradition. This tradition is hardly quoted (with the exception of Maybudī, be it in a separate category in his commentary) and there are no explicit references to it. However, we saw the

Sufi understanding of the verse still never really escapes the theological framework of the authors: there is a constant implicit presence of these conventional understandings of the verse.

One idea all commentaries do seem to share, albeit with some differences, is this: before Moses reaches the point of requesting the vision, he has reached a state in which he has lost his sense of self or has surpassed his human condition. However, whether the vision was subsequently actually granted, and if so, in which mode, there is a great deal of difference. Only two of the commentators categorically deny the vision of God by Moses: al-

Qushayrī and Maybudī. Both of these two have not included the quotations from al-Sulamī’s redaction that imply a vision by annihilation (fanāʾ) into their commentaries. On the exact reasons a definitive answer cannot be given. It may have something to do with the fact that their commentaries are the only ones that do not exclusively contain commentary by the hermeneutical method of allusion (ishāra), but conventional text-based and theological commentary as well. However, the fact that Maybudī and al-Qushayrī did not shy away from using ecstatic vocabulary and symbolism, shows that the incorporation of

242 conventional material does not necessarily ‘force’ a more sober understanding of Sufism.

Maybudī could express himself quite freely in the language of a more ecstatic love mysticism, probably because that space was created by strictly separating between the

‘outward’ (ẓāhir) and the ‘inward’ (bāṭin) in his commentary. It is perhaps because in al-

Qushayrī’s tafsīr the two strands are more or less interwoven and not clearly separated, that he could not move away too far from the boundaries of conventional understandings of the verse, and ends his narrative on a sober note. Still, in this specific passage he is much more ecstatic than in the rest of the commentary.

As for the hierarchy between the encounter of Moses and Muhammad, I suggest that

Q7:143 should be read and analyzed together with the first eighteen verses of surah al-Najm.

Some commentators have, as Rūzbihān and Maybudī did, established the relation themselves. But also in cases where this is not the case, it may be worthwhile to read and analyze them together. It is clear that they more or less deal with the same theme, and reading them together may show how the commentators viewed the position of the prophets and their aural and visual experiences as mystical models. Surah al-Najm will therefore be our case study in the next chapter.

243 244 6 A vision at the utmost boundary

1 Introduction

There is no dearth of scholarship on Muhammad’s night journey and ascension, to the extent that it is quite challenging to write something that has not yet been said.654 Sufi understandings of the vision of God in relation to the ascension (miʿrāj) of Muhammad, however, are still underexposed and worthwhile of further in-depth study.655 This is what we intend to do in this chapter. Through a detailed reading and discussion of the commentary by our main authors on verses related to the vision during Muhammad’s night

654 Even if we limit ourselves to scholarship from the last two decades the interest is evident. See

Brooke Olson Vuckovic, Heavenly Journeys, Earthly Concerns: The Legacy of the Miʿraj in the Formation of

Islam (London: Routledge, 2005); Frederick Colby, Narrating Muhammad’s Night Journey: Tracing the

Development of the Ibn ʿAbbās Ascension Discourse (Albany: SUNY Press, 2008); Christiane Gruber and

Frederick Colby (eds.), The Prophet’s Ascension: Cross-Cultural Encounters with the Islamic Miʿrāj Tales

(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010); Ronald P. Buckley, The Night Journey and Ascension in

Islam: The Reception of Religious Narrative in Sunnī, Shīʿī and Western Culture (London: I.B. Tauris, 2013);

Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi (ed.), Le Voyage Initiatique en Terre d’Islam: Ascensions célestes et itineraires spirituels (Louvain-Paris: Peeters, 1996). For an overview of earlier scholarship on the miʿrāj see

Vuckovic, Heavenly Journeys, 7-13; EI2, s.v. Miʿrādj, VII, 97-105 (J. Horowitz; J. Bencheikh).

655 For Sufi understandings of the vision during the miʿrāj only Böwering, “From Word to Vision” is currently available. Van Ess has drawn attention to the relation of the miʿrāj to the issue of the vision of God in several publications, relating it to early debates on anthropomorphism. See Josef van Ess, “Le Miʿrāğ et la vision de Dieu dans les premières speculations théologique en Islam,” in Le

Voyage Initiatique en Terre d’Islam: Ascensions célestes et itineraires spirituels, ed. Mohammad Ali Amir-

Moezzi (Louvain-Paris: Peeters, 1996), 27-56; TG, IV, 387-90; Josef van Ess, “Vision and Ascension:

Sūrat al-Najm and its Relationship with Muḥammad’s miʿrāj,” JQS 1, no. 1 (1999): Josef van Ess, The

Flowering of Muslim Theology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 45-77.

245 journey (isrāʾ), we hope to shed new light on how Sufi authors understood this vision, and how this relates to conventional understandings of the vision during the isrāʾ and miʿrāj in

Islamic tradition.

In most Islamic literature that deals with the isrāʾ and the miʿrāj descriptions of

Paradise and Hell play a prominent role and are arguably even the most important aspect of the ascension narratives. However, in our Sufi Qurʾān commentaries this theme is strikingly absent. Sufi exegesis of the miʿrāj-related verses show the same disregard for the otherworld that we observed in Chapter Two. Only the Qurʾānic passages that the authors could interpret in relation to the themes of nearness and vision come to the fore. The journey to Paradise and Hell was not worth mentioning for Sufi exegetes: only the journey to God mattered to them. In Sufism the miʿrāj has traditionally functioned as a model for instruction to attain this nearness to and vision of God. The likes of al-Basṭāmī, al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī produced and collected texts that gave a mystical twist to the ascent of

Muhammad.656

In our analysis we will focus on one particular aspect of the miʿrāj narrative: the vision of God. Böwering has distinguished four main motifs relating to the vision of God in

656 For a critical edition of al-Sulamī’s Laṭāʾif al-miʿrāj see Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, “Bayān laṭāʾif al-miʿrāj,” in Sufi Treatises of Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (d.412/1021), eds. Gerhard Böwering and Bilal Orfali (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 2009), 21-30. For a translation and annotation see Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, The Subtleties of the Ascension: Early Mystical Sayings on Muhammad’s Heavenly

Journey, trans. Frederick S. Colby (Louisville: Fons Vitae, 2006). For an analysis of the work see

Frederick Colby, “The Subtleties of the Ascension: al-Sulamī on the Miʿrāj of the Prophet

Muhammad,” SI 94 (2002): 167-83. For a partial translation of al-Qushayrī’s Kitāb al-miʿrāj see

Nguyen, “Confluence of Traditions,” 424-32. Cf. Colby, Night Journey, 115-17. On the miʿrāj of al-

Basṭāmī see Pierre Lory, “Le miʿrāğ d’Abū Yazīd Basṭāmī,” in Le Voyage Initiatique en Terre d’Islam:

Ascensions célestes et itineraires spirituels, ed. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi (Louvain-Paris: Peeters,

1996), 223-38.

246 the ascension narrative, all related to a different early Sufi authority. The first two motives are reminiscent of what we have encountered in the analysis of Moses’ request of the vision. The first motif is the vision during the ascension as a foretaste of the vision in the hereafter, which Böwering relates to al-Wāsiṭī (d. 320/932). The second motif considers the vision during the ascension not as a foretaste of the world to come, but rather as the recapturing of the primordial vision of God at the Day of the Covenant. Böwering relates this to Sahl al-Tustarī. The third motif is the interiorization of Muhammad’s vision in the individual mystic. He relates this to Ibn ʿAṭāʾ (d. 309/922). The fourth motif, related to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765), links the vision of God to the theme of love: the visionary encounter is an encounter of mutual love and intimacy.657 Especially the first two motives show the relatedness of the theme of vision in this context with the grander scheme proposed in our introduction: the vision of the miʿrāj is either a re-actualization of the primordial vision, or an eschatological vision brought into this-worldly life. Böwering’s classification also once again emphasizes the relatedness of the themes of love and vision. In what follows we will see whether this also holds true for the discussions on the miʿrāj in the works of our commentators.

2 The Qurʾān and the night journey

The Qurʾān contains two passages that are traditionally associated with the night journey and ascension of Muhammad: Q53:1-18 (related to Q81:19-25) and Q17:1 (possibly related to

Q17:60, 8:43 and 48:27).658 The verses themselves are rather opaque and do not refer to an ascent (miʿrāj, ‘ladder’) explicitly, nor do they reveal the identities of the involved actors: they are merely referred to as ‘he’, ‘him’ or ‘his servant.’ Detailed narrative of the night

657 Böwering, “Word to Vision,” 213.

658 Cf. Colby, Night Journey, 13-28; Böwering, “Word to Vision,” 206.

247 journey and the ascension developed outside the Qurʾān, most notably in ḥadīth literature.659 Only when the narrative was firmly established as part of the Islamic faith it was read into these Qurʾānic passages in exegetical literature, in a process that Neuwirth has called “mythologizing exegesis,” a process that “dissolves the qurʾānic statements into its individual elements in order to construct out of these elements side-plots and background images.”660 The identities of the subjects involved in the opaque Qurʾānic narratives were thus a matter of speculation in exegetical literature. As we shall see, several options co-existed for a long time in tafsīr literature.

All these verses are important to take into account in our analysis, but of special significance are a couple of verses from Surah al-Najm that describe a visionary encounter between two unidentified entities. We will first have a closer look at the reception of these verses in the early tafsīr tradition, how these early positions were disseminated in the school of Nishapur, and then compare these to our Sufi sources.661

3 Divine or angelic manifestation: readings of Surah al-Najm

When glancing at late pre-modern and modern commentaries on the Qurʾān, the visionary encounters in Surah al-Najm are mostly interpreted as angelic manifestations. Most

659 Colby, Night Journey; EQ, s.v. Ascension, I, 176-81 (M. Sells).

660 Angelika Neuwirth, “From the Sacred Mosque to the Remote Temple: Sūrat al-Isrāʾ between Text and Commentary,” in With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, eds. Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Barry D. Walfish and Joseph W. Goering (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2003), 398. Cf. Colby, Night Journey, 17-22. Cf. Josef van Ess, “Vision and Ascension,”

47-9.

661 For a diachronic comparison of twelve Qurʾān commentaries on Surah al-Najm see Regula Forster,

Methoden mittelalterlicher arabischer Qurʾānexegese am Beispiel von Q53, 1-18 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz

Verlag, 2001).

248 commentators will state that Muhammad saw Gabriel. Very rarely the option of a vision of

God is mentioned, mostly only to refute the position.662 The idea that Muhammad saw God is apparently considered problematic in late pre-modern and modern Islamic thought. This has not always been the case. As we shall see, in the period that we are studying the option of a vision of God by Muhammad during his this-worldly life was a serious and prominent position in Qurʾān commentaries. The option of an angelic vision was present, but not necessarily the most prominent. When Sufi commentators interpreted Surah al-Najm within their larger narrative of the possibility of seeing God during this-worldly life, they thus remained within the boundaries of what was perceived as a legitimate, even a conventional interpretation in their time. There was no need to trespass the boundaries of current

662 Already the 9th/15th-century Tafsīr al-Jalālayn mentions it as the only interpretation of Q53:11.

Suyūṭī and Maḥallī, Tafsīr al-Jalālayn, 526-27. Also the 19th-century commentator al-Alūsī only understands it as an angelic manifestation, not mentioning the option of a divine manifestation at all. Shihāb al-Dīn Maḥmūd al-Ḥusaynī al-Alūsī, Rūh al-maʿānī fī tafsīr al-qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm wa’l-sabʿa al- mathānī (Beirut: Dār iḥyāʾ al-turāth al-ʿarabī, n.d.), XXVII, 49. Al-Qāsimī refutes the vision of God by

Muhammad, quoting opinions by Ibn al-Qayyim, Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Kathīr. Jamāl al-Dīn al-

Qāsimī, Maḥāsin al-taʾwīl, eds. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī and Ḥamdī Ṣubḥ (Cairo: Dār al-ḥadīth, 2003), VIII, 518-

523. The modern scholar al-Ṣābūnī does mention the opinion of a divine manifestation but dismisses it. Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Ṣābūnī, Ṣafwat al-tafāsīr (Istanbul: Dersaadet Kitabevi, n.d.), III, 273. Ibn ʿĀshur only mentions Gabriel. Muḥammad b. ʿĀshūr, Tafsīr al-tahrīr wa’l-tanwīr (Tunis: Al-Dār al-tūnisiyya li’l-nashr, 1984), XXVII, 98-100. This looks like a case of the disappearance of polyvalence in the tafsīr tradition that Norman Calder described in his famous article “Tafsīr from Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr.” It is not unlikely that these later positions have something to do with the large influence of al-

Zamakhsharī’s commentary on the later tafsīr tradition, rather than Ibn Kathīr. As a Muʿtazilī he remained silent on the idea of a vision of God and only mentioned Gabriel as the object of

Muhammad’s vision. This issue needs deeper study.

249 interpretations for these Sufis: the exegetical option of a vision of God by Muhammad was present and much more widely accepted than in later exegetical traditions.

From very early on it was a matter of controversy whether Muhammad saw God face-to-face during his night journey. The controversy over the meaning of the verses in

Surah al-Najm that hint at a visionary meeting goes back to opinions attributed to the companions of Muhammad, which may be back projections of later theological debates.

Conflicting traditions found their way into Qurʾān commentaries. Sayings in favor of the vision of God by Muhammad are attributed to ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbās (d. 68/687), Anas b. Mālik

(d. 93/711) and a generation later ʿIkrima (d. 105/723-4). A strong statement against the vision is attributed to Muhammad’s late spouse ʿĀʾisha (d. 58/678).663 Several positions were taken based on these transmissions. Some confirmed Muhammad’s vision of God by the eye during the night journey, some denied it (mostly replacing God with Gabriel), and some took a middle position claiming that it was a vision of God by the heart. Yet another position holds that Muhammad saw God twice, once with the eye and once with the heart.664

663 For collections of transmissions on this specific issue see Chapter Four, footnote 518. The historicity of these accounts is outside the scope of this research. One may presume that they represent later theological debates projected back on companions of Muhammad through the isnād system to give weight and authority to theological positions. For a thorough analysis of the problem of the historicity of transmissions attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās see Harald Motzki, “The Origins of

Muslim Exegesis. A Debate,” in Analysing Muslim Traditions: Studies in Legal, Exegetical and Maghāzī

Ḥadīth, eds. Harald Motzki, Nicolet Boekhoff-van der Voort and Sean W. Anthony (Leiden: Brill,

2010), 231-304.

664 Ibn Ḥajr, Ghunya, 13-4. Van Ess has noted that in the earliest commentaries on Surah al-Najm it was not unusual to state that it was Muhammad who saw God. He even brings up non-canonical sources that suggest a physical meeting in an earthly paradise at Jerusalem. He points out that it was the later fear of anthropomorphism and the development of the doctrine of the absolute transcendence (tanzīh) of God that led to the interpretation that Muhammad merely saw the angel

250 The first encounter mentioned in Surah al-Najm is a ‘revelation’ (waḥy) that ‘one with mighty powers’ (shadīd al-quwwā) taught ‘him’.665 Most scholars in the field of Qurʾānic

Studies understand this as a revelatory meeting between God and Muhammad.666 However, there is a striking consensus from very early on in the tafsīr tradition that ‘one with mighty powers’ refers to Gabriel and that ‘him’ refers to Muhammad. No one claims that it was God, nor is this exegetical option mentioned at all. Even among early exegetes such as Ibn

ʿAbbās, Mujāhid and Muqātil the only opinion mentioned is that this is a reference to

Gabriel revealing the Qurʾān to Muhammad. This remains so in later conventional tafsīr as well as in Sufi commentaries. In the Sufi commentaries only al-Qushayrī and al-Daylamī refer to this issue. Rūzbihān and al-Sulamī do not comment upon the verse at all. Maybudī only briefly deals with the matter in his conventional commentary.667

Gabriel, which would become the dominant view in later tafsīr. TG, IV, 387-90; Van Ess, “Vision and

Ascension,” 49-53.

665 Q53:4-7: It is nothing but a revelation revealed; one with mighty powers taught it to him; one of great strength, who stood straight, while he was on the highest horizon.

666 Several scholars in the field of Qurʾānic Studies have argued the contrary of the tafsīr tradition and have read this passage as a confirmation that the most early Qurʾānic passages considered revelation as the result of a direct meeting of God and Muhammad, only to be superseded in newer

Qurʾānic passages by an understanding of revelation through an angelic messenger. See Richard

Bell, “Muhammad’s Visions,” The Muslim World 24 (1934): 102; TG, IV, 387; Colby, Night Journey, 17-20;

Williams, “Tajallī wa-Ru’ya,” 101-09. Nicolai Sinai has recently argued for the contrary, stating that

Q81:19-25 is earlier than Q53. Nicolai Sinai, “An Interpretation of Sūrat al-Najm (Q.53),” JQS 13, no. 2

(2011): 7-9.

667 Muḥammad al-Fīrūzābādī, Tanwīr al-miqbās min tafsīr Ibn ʿAbbās, trans. Mokrane Guezzou (Amman:

Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, 2007), 620-22; Mujāhid b. Jabr, Tafsīr Mujāhid b. Jabr, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Salām Abū al-Nayl (Cairo: Dār al-fikr al-islāmī al-ḥadītha, 1989), 625-26;

Muqātil b. Sulaymān, Tafsīr Muqātil b. Sulaymān, ed. ʿAbd Allāh Maḥmūd Shaḥāta (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-

251 This is different for the second mentioning of an encounter, in Q53:8-9. This passage mentions how someone draws near and comes down, until he is two bow-lengths away or even closer (thumma danā fa-tadallā, fa-kāna qāba qawsayni aw adnā). Who or what draws near and comes down, and toward whom or what, does not become clear from the Qurʾānic passage itself and is again the domain of exegesis. Commentaries give roughly four options:

Muhammad moved towards God; God moved towards Muhammad; Gabriel moved towards

Muhammad; or Gabriel moved towards God.

Q53:8-9 Muhammad Gabriel Gabriel to God to Personal to God to God Muhammad Muhammad preference Early commentaries Ibn ʿAbbās + + Gabriel to Muhammad Mujāhid + Gabriel to God Muqātil + God to Muhammad School of Nishapur Thaʿlabī + + + Not mentioned Māwardī + + + Not mentioned Wāḥidī + Gabriel

Sufi commentaries Sulamī + Not mentioned Qushayrī + + Gabriel to Muhammad Maybudī II + + Not

Miṣriyya al-ʿāmma li’l-kitāb, 1988), IV,159; Thaʿlabī, Kashf, IX, 136-37; Māwardī, Nukat, V, 391-92;

Wāḥidī, Basīṭ, XXI, 12-5; Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, III, 481-83; Maybudī, Kashf, IX, 359-60; Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-

Daylamī, “ folio 134a.

252 mentioned Maybudī III

Daylamī + + Muhammad to God Rūzbihān + Muhammad to God

These four options are already present among our sample of earliest commentators. Ibn

ʿAbbās mentions two opinions: either Gabriel drew near to Muhammad, or Muhammad drew near to God. His personal preference is the first option.668 In the commentary of

Mujāhid only the opinion of Gabriel drawing near to God is mentioned.669 Muqātil sees no difficulties in claiming that God drew near and descended to Muhammad.670 As an avowed anthropomorphist who even believed that God had physically touched Muhammad this idea was not problematic to him. Only the first three early positions find their way into the commentaries of the school of Nishapur. Al-Thaʿlabī and al-Māwardī mention them all equally without stating their own preference. These commentators from Nishapur do not cite the position of Muqātil, probably because its anthropomorphic implications were not acceptable for them.671 Muqātil’s position only reappears in Maybudī’s conventional tafsīr.

He also suggests that God may have descended to Muhammad.672 To Maybudī the statement may not have been so problematic given the negative attitude towards kalām of his teacher

ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī. Al-Daylamī mentions the option as well, but merely says that some

668 Fīrūzābādī, Tafsīr Ibn ʿAbbās, 621-22.

669 Mujāhid, Tafsīr Mujāhid, 625-26.

670 Muqātil, Tafsīr, IV, 160. This interpretation of the verse has also found its way into Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī in the form of a much discussed ḥadīth. Cf. Qāsimī, Maḥāsin al-taʾwīl, VIII, 521.

671 Thaʿlabī, Kashf, IX, 137-39; Māwardī, Nukat, V, 392-93; Wāḥidī, Basīṭ, XXI, 16-21.

672 Maybudī, Kashf, IX, 359-60.

253 have suggested it and doubts its correctness.673 Salient is that from the Sufi commentators only al-Qushayrī involves Gabriel in his position. All other Sufi commentaries prefer the option that Muhammad drew closer to God. This option fits better in the typical Sufi theme of nearness to God as a mystical objective, and thus pushes the angelic option to the background.674

So far the Qurʾānic verses that refer to an encounter of revelation and an encounter of drawing near have been described. The two passages after these explicitly mention visionary encounters, and this is where things become more equivocal. Q53:11 reads as follows: mā kadh(dh)aba al-fuʾādu ma raʾā. Two variant readings are extant of the verse, with consequences for its meaning according to exegetes. The variant readings differ in respect to the verb k-dh-b, that is, whether the dh should be read with a shadda or not. Read without shadda the subject would refer to itself, rendering the meaning the heart did not belie what it

[the heart] saw. The heart itself is the locus of the vision according to this reading. When read with shadda, it emphasizes a higher level of belying. The locus of vision is other than the heart, which would imply a less emphasized form of belying: in exegesis this is explained as the vision of the eye, which has a higher level of certainty and would need a stronger form of belying thatn a vision by the heart: the heart did not belie what it [the eye] saw.675 In the commentary tradition the most important exegetical options are Muhammad’s vision of either God or Gabriel. For the vision of God the modality of the eye and the heart are both mentioned. Also minor positions as Muhammad seeing God in his sleep, seeing the might of God, a light or signs are mentioned.676

673 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 134a.

674 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, II, 284-85; Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, III, 481-83; Maybudī, Kashf, IX, 378-79; Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 134a; Rūzbihān, ʿArāʾis, III, 357.

675 Māwardī, Nukat, V, 393-94; Maybudī, Kashf, IX, 359.

676 These minor positions have been left out of the table for reasons of convenience.

254

Q53:11- Muhammad Muhammad Muhammad Personal 12 saw God saw God saw preference with the with the Gabriel eye heart Early commentaries Ibn + + Muhammad ʿAbbās saw God with the heart Mujāhid + + Not mentioned. Cites Gabriel- option more often. Muqātil Raʾā min amri rabbihī School of Nishapur Thaʿlabī + + + Māwardī + + + Wāḥidī + + + Muhammad saw God with the eye Sufi commentaries Sulamī + + Qushayrī + Muhammad saw ‘signs’ Maybudī + + + Muhammad II saw God with the eye Maybudī III Daylamī + Muhammad saw God with the eye Rūzbihān + + Muhammad saw God with the eye and the heart

255 The second passage referring to a visionary encounter follows directly upon the former: He saw him/Him at another descent, at the lote tree of the utmost boundary.677 Here the same basic positions can be distinguished as in the former passage. However, the idea of an angelic manifestation instead of a divine manifestation is a bit more prominent. The exegetes considered it problematic to attribute the idea of a descent (nazla) mentioned in the verse to God, since they considered God to be transcendent above movement and place.

In exegesis then, the passage is often linked to the angelic manifestation described in

Q81:19-23 (He saw him at the clear horizon). Q81:19-23 would then be the first vision of Gabriel, the visionary encounter mentioned in Q53:13 being the second. Al-Thaʿlabī for example followed the opinion attributed to ʿĀʾisha that Muhammad saw Gabriel in his true form at this descent, mentioning it as the best option according to scholars, because the vision is connected to a place and is thus not applicable to God: “describing God with a place and descent, which is relocation, is impossible.”678

Q53:13- Muhammad Muhammad Muhammad Gabriel Personal 14 saw God saw God saw saw preference with the with the Gabriel God eye heart Early commentaries Ibn + + + Muhammad ʿAbbās saw Gabriel Mujāhid Muqātil + School of Nishapur Thaʿlabī + Muhammad saw Gabriel Māwardī + + + Wāḥidī + +

677 Q53:13-14.

678 Thaʿlabī, Kashf, IX, 142.

256 Sufi commentaries Sulamī Qushayrī + Gabriel saw God Maybudī + Muhammad II saw Gabriel Maybudī III Daylamī + Rūzbihān + + Essentially same vision as first

4 Vision and nearness: al-Sulamī

Compared to the rich and varied material in his collected commentaries on Q7:143, al-

Sulamī’s commentary on the verses related to the miʿrāj is not very extensive. This may be because he had already collected the bulk of the material available to him in his Laṭāʾif al- miʿrāj and saw no point in collecting all of them twice.679 What does catch the eye is that the verses dealing with nearness and vision attract most commentary in his discussion of al-

Najm. The commentary on the Surah is not at all used to discuss details of the isrāʾ and the miʿrāj, or to reflect on Muhammad’s visit to Paradise and Hell from a Sufi perspective.

Apparently all that mattered to the early Sufi commentators quoted by al-Sulamī were the verses that the Sufis could use to describe a moment of intimacy and nearness to God and, more controversially, the vision of Him.

Already in the commentary on the second verse of Surah al-Najm, your companion has not strayed, nor erred, a link to the theme of nearness and vision is established. Al-Sulamī

679 Here we will leave the Laṭāʾif al-miʿrāj out of the scope of our analysis, since our main focus is on the genealogy and originality of ideas in the tafsīr tradition. For an analysis of its content see Colby,

Subtleties; Colby, “Subtleties” and Böwering, “From Word to Vision.”

257 quotes both Ibn ʿAtāʾ and Jaʿfar stating that Muhammad did not stray from nearness to and vision of God for the blink of an eye.680 The two modes of vision suggested in conventional tafsīr, by the eye and by the heart, both return in al-Sulamī’s commentary. Sahl is quoted in support of a vision by the heart: “He is right opposite in his witnessing of his Lord, seeing

Him with his heart.”681 Bundār b. al-Ḥusayn (d. 353/964) also considers it to be a vision of the heart. Fuʾād and qalb are not synonymous for him however, but separate layers of a spiritual organ. The fuʾād contains the qalb: “The fuʾād is the vessel of the qalb. The fuʾād did not doubt about what the foundation saw, and that is the qalb.”682 In the saying of Jaʿfar the theme of vision is again related to the theme of divine love. He shrouds the vision in mystery, a secret only known by the two Lovers: “No one knows what he saw, except He who showed and he who saw. The Beloved came close to the beloved, a confidant for him, an intimate friend with him.”683 Only Ibn ʿAṭāʾ is quoted in favor of a vision with the eye. He understands the verse according to the reading with shadda: his heart did not belie what he saw with his eyes. Not everyone is capable of this according to Ibn ʿAṭāʾ: sometimes someone is overwhelmed by what his eyes see, while his heart cannot grasp it. However,

Muhammad is capable of this.684

5 Angelic manifestation: al-Qushayrī

The commentary of al-Qushayrī differs from the other commentaries in that he chooses

Gabriel as the main character in the encounters in the verse. This difference becomes most

680 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, II, 283.

681 Ibid., II, 285. Cf. Keeler and Keeler, Tafsīr al-Tustarī, 212: “at the witnessing (mushāhada) of his Lord, through the vision (baṣar) of his heart as a right opposite encounter (kifāḥ).”

682 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, II, 285.

683 Ibid. Translation from Mayer, Spiritual Gems, 154.

684 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, II, 285.

258 visible when we have a look at the passage of the sayings in al-Sulamī’s commentary on

Surah al-Najm into al-Qushayrī’s Laṭā’if al-ishārāt. Al-Qushayrī includes only one quote from al-Sulamī’s commentary, a saying by Jaʿfar (quoted anonymously) in which the verse then he drew near and came down is interpreted as Muhammad drawing near to his own heart.685 He leaves out all quotes that describe a vision of God by Muhammad. Al-Qushayrī thus shows himself, contrary to his commentary on Moses’ request to see God, from an extraordinarily sober side, avoiding themes that pertain to nearness, vision, or even love mysticism.

In his commentary on the verses thumma danā fa-tadallā, fa-kāna qāba qawsayn aw adnā al-Qushayrī opens with his personal opinion that Gabriel drew close to Muhammad and descended, being a two-bows length away from Muhammad. Why al-Qushayrī has made this choice is not easy to reconstruct. It was an unusual choice in his broader intellectual milieu. Most of his contemporaries in Nishapur do not even mention this option. Only after having mentioned his own opinion most prominently he continues with two other voices that do interpret the verse as Muhammad drawing near to God. However, these voices consider this drawing near to be an inward matter. Drawing near to God to a two-bows length for example is interpreted as “the imminence of blessing” (dunuw al-karāma) or an increase in experiential knowledge. The descent mentioned in the verse then is Muhammad prostrating before his Lord.686

Only in his commentary on verse Q53:11 does he neutrally mention the opinion that

Muhammad saw God, without specifying the modality of this vision: “He saw his Lord that night in a way where he knew Him before seeing Him.”687 However, even here it is not framed as his own preferred opinion. Al-Qushayrī prefers to interpret the object of vision as signs (āyāt), referring to the ‘signs’ mentioned in Q53:18 (He saw of the greatest signs of his

685Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, III, 482; Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, II, 284.

686 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, III, 481-82; Nguyen, “Confluence of Traditions,” 421.

687 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, III, 483; Nguyen, “Confluence of Traditions,” 422-23.

259 Lord). This is all Muhammad saw that night. These signs are seen with the eye, and understood by the heart.688 In his commentary on Q53:13 he only gives the interpretation that Gabriel saw God a second time. He does not discuss any opinion that claims a vision of

God by Muhammad.689

It is tempting to attribute al-Qushayrī’s avoidance of the theme of the vision of God to his Ashʿarī partisanship. However, Ashʿarī doctrine was not per se against the idea of

Muhammad seeing God during the night journey. Also, other commentators from Nishapur with Ashʿarī leanings did not see a problem in interpreting the verses as such. It is also unlikely that he was somehow careful to express an opinion in favor of the vision of God for fear of a backlash from the Muʿtazila partisans. After all, al-Qushayrī took a clear stance in the schism in Nishapur and even wrote polemical defenses for typical Ashʿarī stances against the Muʿtazilites.690 An explanation may be that he, like his predecessors al-Sarrāj (d.

377/988) and al-Kalābādhī (d. 380/990 or 384/994), was very wary of people who claimed a heavenly journey and visionary experience similar to that of Muhammad.691 His wariness of claiming a vision of God by Muhammad and preferring the Gabriel-option may have been a way to counter such claims and to let his students refrain from striving for and claiming of similar experiences.

688 This means that also al-Qushayrī reads k-dh-b with a shadda.

689 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, III, 483.

690 The best example of this is his Shikāyat ahl al-sunna. ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Hawāzim al-Qushayrī,

“Shikāyat ahl al-sunna,” in Al-Rasāʾil al-Qushayriyya, ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Hawāzim al-Qushayrī, ed.

Muḥammad Ḥasan (Karachi: al-Maʿhad al-markazī li’l-abḥāth al-islāmiyya, 1964), 1-49.

691 See Chapter Four.

260 6 Muhammad surpassing Moses: Maybudī

Before moving to the ishārī part (nawbat III) of Maybudī’s commentary it is worthwhile to first focus on the conventional part (nawbat II). This will help us to understand how his theological positions on the miʿrāj and most importantly on the issue of Muhammad’s vision of God are entangled with his ishārī understandings of the verses. In his commentary on

Surah al-Najm Maybudī’s identity as a Ḥanbalī-traditionist in credal matters comes to the fore, focusing as he does on grammatical explanation and evaluation of transmissions rather than on theological reasoning. Maybudī first takes note of the two variant readings of Q53:11 and explains the difference in meaning between the two readings of the verb k-dh- b as discussed above. He then relates the different opinions on the object of vision: God (by the heart or the eye) or Gabriel. He has an outspoken preference for the position of al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Anas and ʿIkrima in favor of a vision of God by the eye, mentioning it as the only right position. He dismisses the position of ʿĀʾisha, who allegedly stated that Muhammad never claimed to have seen God. He dismisses it because she does not refer to what she heard Muhammad say, but to what she did not hear him say. He prefers the transmission by

Ibn ʿAbbās, who claims to have heard Muhammad say that he saw God. He thinks this is a stronger proof, because it contains a confirmation through what is heard from the prophet, while ʿAʾisha’s negation comes from her own opinion. The first type of evidence has more weight for him. On Q53:13 he notes the same difference of opinion as on the former verse.

Here he does not make a clear choice himself, but merely conveys the position that it may have been either Gabriel or God.692

In his ishārī commentary on al-Najm, the issue of vision is not Maybudī’s main point of interest. Although he only comments upon the verses that are related to nearness and vision, the theme of vision does not form the core of his comments. Most of his comments are a praise of Muhammad and his night journey as the purpose of creation. From several

692 Maybudi, Kashf, IX, 359-60.

261 passages it does become clear that he considered Muhammad’s vision of God to be a face-to- face encounter by the physical eye. In his commentary on Q17:1 he confirms that

Muhammad saw God. However, he shrouds the details of the meeting with God in mystery and stresses that they are impenetrable for others: “He heard the secret, he tasted the wine, he saw the vision of God (…)he saw what he saw, and no one knows about these secrets, intellects and imaginations are deprived of comprehending them.”693 In his commentary on the first verse he states that By the star when it descended is an allusion to the return of

Muhammad from the face-to-face vision (ḥaḍrat-i ʿiyān) in the miʿrāj, where his heart also found “the spirit of witnessing” (rūḥ-i mushāhadat) and he reached a state of nearness (qurb) and communion (muwāṣala).694

As earlier in his discussion on Q7:143 Maybudī uses the theme of the vision of God to establish a hierarchy between Moses and Muhammad to the advantage of the latter.695 He explains that Moses thought that his ascension to mount Sinai was the highest possible level to be reached. While Moses’ request for vision was rejected with the “sword of vigilant care” (ṣamṣām-i ghayrat), that is, the sharp words You shall not see Me (Q7:143), Muhammad was commanded to not direct his eyes to anything but Him: “Do not extend your eyes”

(Q15:88). Muhammad’s eyes were not diverted according to Maybudī, quoting Q53:17, the eyesight did not swerve, nor did it transgress, as well as some verses of poetry alluding to

Muhammad seeing God.696 Also in his commentary on Q17:1 Maybudī links Muhammad’s journey with Moses’ retreat on Mount Sinai. He points out that while Moses came to the

693 Ibid., V, 504.

694 Ibid., IX, 374.

695 Cf. Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 244-47.

696 Ibid., IX, 378-9.

262 mountain by himself (Moses came to our appointed time, Q7:143), Muhammad’s journey had an involuntary character (who took His servant by night, Q17:1).697

7 Muhammad’s light entering God’s world: al-Daylamī

As in the commentary on Adam’s banishment and Moses’ request of the vision, al-Daylamī’s commentaries on the verses related to Muhammad’s isrāʾ and miʿrāj are rather brief. While

Q17:1 remains completely unaddressed, Surah al-Najm only provokes some minimal fragmentary comments. This briefness is in stark contrast to the prominence that he gives to the question of ruʾyat Allāh in his other treatises. On Q53:11 he only states that “the heart did not belie, deny or doubt what the eye saw witnessing with the eye. He witnessed his

Lord face-to-face with the eye-sight (baṣar).”698 He thus is a proponent of an ocular vision of

God by Muhammad. He confirms this in the next verse, even stating that Muhammad not only saw the attributes of God, but also His essence. This vision, according to al-Daylamī, is repeated at another descent, at another ascension at the lote tree of the utmost boundary

(sidrat al-muntahā).699

Al-Daylamī interprets Then he drew near to refer to Muhammad coming near to his

Lord, moving into His world as the veils are torn apart between them. Muhammad is described as a light in veils. And descended is an allusion to the beams of Muhammad spreading out in God’s world after these veils were removed:

He was a light in veils. When he went out of them, his beams were spread there like the sun when it goes out from the clouds. His body was close like the nearness of two

697 Ibid., V, 501.

698 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 134a.

699 Ibid.

263 bows length. Then what was left of the veils was lifted, and he became nearer and closer.700

According to al-Daylamī, many falsely consider this drawing near to be divine indwelling

(ḥulūl). He stresses that “it is nothing but the lifting of the veils.”701 He dismisses the opinion of some exegetes that God drew near to Muhammad. God is near by definition and distance is impossible (mustaḥīl) in reference to God,702 while the servant is distant from God because of the veils between them.703

8 God seeing God: Rūzbihān’s vision through unification (ittiḥād)

Carl Ernst has noted that Rūzbihān in his visionary autobiography Kashf al-asrār “frequently alludes to ascension as the mode by which he, in imitation of the Prophet, journeys to see

God.”704 He stresses “the importance of the model of the prophet for the interior ascension of the Sufi.”705 Rūzbihān’s treatment of Muhammad’s ascension in his Qurʾān commentary can indeed be read as a guide for spiritual ascension, taking the reader through the process of seclusion from creation to the different stations on the way, culminating in unification

(ittiḥād) with God and a vision of Him in that ultimate state.

700 Ibid., folio 133b-134a.

701 Ibid.

702 This is an implicit reference to the Qurʾānic notion that God is “closer to him than his jugular vein” (Q50:16), and that Muhammad should tell people who ask him about God that He is close

(Q2:186). Based on these verses nearness is considered to be one of the attributes of God.

703 Daylamī, “Tafsīr al-Daylamī,” folio 133b-134a.

704 Ernst, Ruzbihan, 61.

705 Ibid.

264 In his Mashrab al-arwāḥ Rūzbihān makes clear that he believes that Muhammad has indeed seen God. In several places he quotes aḥādīth in which Muhammad makes statements about the modalities and forms of his visions of God.706 Also in his Qurʾān commentary he takes Muhammad as an example of someone who is constantly in a state of passionate love after having seen God in a face-to-face encounter. On Q18:28, keep yourself patient together with those who call upon their Lord in the morning and evening, seeking His face, he comments that

God means to comfort His prophet by this verse. Ever since Muhammad has seen the beauty and majesty of God “between the two bows length (qāba qawsayn),” he states, “he was with his heart in al-malakūt, with his spirit in al-jabarūt, with his inmost self (sirr) in the witnessing of beginninglessness (mushāhadat al-qidam), and with his mind (ʿaql) in the lights of His unseen longing for God.”707 The overwhelming experience of seeing God made him impatient to see Him again, and to transgress the boundaries of created form for a new ascension to two bows length. In this commentary of Rūzbihān we see the same precondition for the possibility of the vision of God that we have earlier witnessed in several commentaries on the request of Moses: Muhammad first has to overcome his human form to be able to reach the state of seeing God. While God is embodied in

Rūzbihān’s descriptions of the vision of God, the viewer first has to be disembodied. Also in the conception of Rūzbihān once again the theme of vision is intimately intertwined with the theme of passionate love. God advices Muhammad, in the words of Rūzbihān, to

restrain yourself with those poor intense lovers of My beauty, those who long for My majesty, who at all times ask Me to meet My noble face, and want to fly with the wings of love to the world of communion with Me (ʿālam waṣlatī) so that they are

706 “I saw my Lord in the most beautiful form”; “I saw my Lord with my eye and heart”; “I saw my

Lord upon the city market.” Baqlī, Mashrab, 10, 105, 221-22, 256. These aḥādīth are not considered to be canonical, but are widespread in Sufi circles. Cf. Murata, “God is Beautiful,” 202-06.

707 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, II, 421.

265 comforted through your company with the station of communion (maqām al-wiṣāl). In your vision is the vision of that beauty for them. You are with them as a confirmation, while your inmost self, mind, spirit and heart are with Me. They are loci of the manifestation (tajallī) of My greatness and the secrets of My might. Creation does not have the power to be near your heart. (…) ‘And do not overlook them,’ (Q18:28) because they look to Me through your eye, when your eye seeks the witnessing of Me in the reflection of My acts.708

Who remains close to Muhammad, thus has access to the vision of God. One can see God through the presence of Muhammad. When Muhammad witnesses God in the reflection of

His acts –that is, an indirect vision through creation- the believers who are with him and seek God’s face, see God through the eyes of Muhammad. An echo of the importance of the shaykh-murīd relationship that rose to prominence in the time of Rūzbihān can be found in this idea. As the seeker of God (murīd) needs his shaykh to be able to find God, so the community of believers needs Muhammad to reach the witnessing and vision of God.

Muhammad –as is the shaykh- is the medium (wasīla) between the believer and the vision of

God. Muhammad –who actually belongs to God, where his inner constitution still remains- is only commanded to reside among the ordinary people for this specific purpose.

Rūzbihān is the only of our commentators who gives a rich and detailed description of the modality of Muhammad’s vision of God during his night journey. In his commentary on Q17:1 he describes a similar modality as al-Wāsiṭī in the case study of Moses: a vision of

God through God. He describes a process of unification (ittiḥād) by Muhammad with God, resulting in a vision of God by God’s own eye.709

His discussion of Q17:1 is a fine example of how tafsīr bi’l-ishāra, exegesis by allusion, works in practice. Rūzbihān distinguishes four allusions in the verse, using key passages and

708 Ibid.

709 The use of this term by Rūzbihān in his commentary is remarkable. In his other works he shows no concern in explaining this term, and it seems that it was not part of his usual technical vocabulary.

266 words to project his own ideas and associations on the Qurʾānic verse. The first is an allusion of transcendence (taqdīs) in the word subḥān (‘transcendent’ or ‘praised’).

According to Rūzbihān this word in the verse alludes to the non-physical character of

Muhammad’s destination: he did not travel towards a place. When Muhammad arrived at

‘the behind of the behind’ (warāʾ al-warāʾ) and rose to the kingdom of heavens (malakūt al- samawāt) to meet his Lord it was not an elevation to a place. He stresses that God is transcendent above any suggestion of direction or place, and cannot be likened to creation in any way. The second allusion Rūzbihān finds in the word alladhī (the relative pronoun

‘who’), which he holds to be an allusion of vigilant care (ghayra). This vigilant care is expressed in Muhammad being singled out from all of creation to see God. God chose neither to mention His own name in the verse, using the relative pronoun instead, nor to mention the name of Muhammad so that nobody would try to rise up to Him and

Muhammad during their meeting. The third allusion, of the unseen (ghayb), he sees in a word play with the verb asrā, which he reads as “kept secret” instead of as made travel by night. He stresses how Muhammad was singled out into the unseen for a secret meeting with God in the night.710 The fourth allusion of the inmost secret (sirr) then, Rūzbihān uses to describe the spiritual development of Muhammad through several halting places, ultimately leading to the halting place of unification (ittiḥād). This passage gives a good impression of the spiritual progress that Rūzbihān strives for, taking Muhammad’s ascension as the model:

He made his servant travel by night, from the halting place of will (irāda) to the halting place of love (maḥabba), and from the halting place of love to the halting place of experiential knowledge (maʿrifa), and from the halting place of experiential knowledge to the halting place of divine unity (tawḥīd), and from the halting place of divine unity to the halting place of solitariness (tafrīd), and from the halting place of solitariness to the halting place of annihilation (fanāʾ), and from the halting place of

710 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, II, 346-47.

267 annihilation to the halting place of subsistence (baqāʾ), and from the halting place of subsistence to the halting place of acquiring [God’s] attributes (ittiṣāf),711 and from the halting place of acquiring [God’s] attributes to the halting place of unification (ittiḥād).712

Where authors like al-Sulamī and al-Daylamī did not go further than the state of annihilation (fanāʾ) to describe the spiritual progress of Moses leading to the vision,

Rūzbihān takes it a few steps further, ultimately leading Muhammad towards ittiḥād, a term that was controversial not only among critics of Sufism, but within Sufi circles as well. It is very rarely used in Sufi texts due to this controversy.713 In what follows Rūzbihān gives a

711 Rūzbihān describes the station of ittiṣāf as follows: “When God manifests Himself to the heart of the lover through the splendor of the attributes, the lover benefits by the condition of intimacy and taste (sharṭ al-muʿāshara wa’l-dhawq) from the vision of some light of every attribute. He forms his character by it and he takes His attribute as his attribute after the created has gone into the beginningless and becomes lordly (rabbānī), as God said: ‘And be lordly (wa-kūnū rabbāniyyīn)’

(Q3:79), and as the prophet said, blessings and peace be upon him: ‘Form your character according to the character of God.’ And the knower said: ‘Ittiṣāf only occurs together with the taste of selfhood

(anāniyya), because the human attribute has left and the attributes of Godliness have remained.’”

Baqlī, Mashrab, 89.

712 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, II, 346-47.

713 Ittiḥād would be the only word in Sufism that truly signifies the unio mystica that is so often held to be the exemplary goal of mysticism. Other words like wiṣāl or jamʿ are often misleadingly translated as such. See Von Schlegell, “Translating Sufism,” 583-84. The term is practically absent from early Sufism. Al-Qushayrī does not discuss the term in his Risāla, nor does al-Sarrāj in his Kitāb al-lumaʿ; al-Hujwīrī does discuss the term in the section on jamʿ and tafriqa, denouncing the concept:

“it is impossible that God should be mingled (imtizāj) with created beings or made one (ittiḥād) with

His works or become incarnate (ḥāll) in things: God is exalted far above that, and far above that which the heretics ascribe to Him.” Hujwīrī, Kashf, 254. Cf. EI2, s.v. Ittiḥād, IV, 282-83 (R. Nicholson/

G.C. Anawati).

268 detailed description of the spiritual process Muhammad went through to reach this state of ittiḥād and subsequently the vision of God. In this description he is careful to state that ittiḥād does not mean that the divine and the human mingle: there is no indwelling (ḥulūl), and divinity (nāsūtiyya) and humanity (lāhūtiyya) remain strictly separated.714

Again, like in the case study of Moses, we see that to be able to see God one first has to go beyond one’s human form: Muhammad surpassed the forms of createdness (rusūm al-

ḥudūthiyya). To illustrate this Rūzbihān makes a cross-reference to Surah al-Najm, to the verse then he came near and he descended. In the context of this verse he describes the annihilation of Muhammad:

No form of createdness (rusūm al-ḥudūthiyya) remained with him due to the appropriation of the created by the beginningless. He came near to Him and then descended from Him, then annihilated in Him, and between [Him and] his annihilation were two bows length,715 the bow of pre-eternity (azal) and the bow of post-eternity (abad), and between the two bows he disappeared in the unseen, and his disappearance subsisted. He was on the same level or closer, and made the unseen of his unseen (ghayb ghaybihi) disappear by disappearance (ghayba), as if he was in the annihilation of annihilation, and annihilation due to the annihilation of annihilation. His name subsisted in the demonstrative pronoun (ism al-ishāra) by His saying {subḥān alladhī asrā bi-ʿabdihi}, meaning: he is with his halting place at the station of unification (ittiḥād) upon the characteristic (waṣf) of servanthood (ʿubūdiyya), praised be (subḥān) who is transcendent (subḥān) above being a halting place for created beings, or of the mixture of divinity (lāhūtiyya) with humanity (nāsūtiyya).716

Besides the described journey through the subsequent halting places, Rūzbihān also perceives an ascension within the vision of God itself. He redefines Muhammad’s journey as a journey through the vision of different aspects of God, following the tripartite division in

714 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, II, 347.

715 This paraphrases Q53:8-9.

716 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, II, 347.

269 essence, attributes and acts. From the vision of His acts and signs (āyāt) Muhammad travelled to the vision of His attributes, and from there to the vision of His essence. This last vision of the essence is the vision that takes place in unification (ittiḥād). In this state it is

God Himself who sees God, since Muhammad in this state of unification sees and hears through the sight and hearing of God717:

He saw God through God, and there he became attributed with the attribute of God, and his form (ṣūra) was his spirit, his spirit his intellect, his intellect his heart, and his heart his inmost self. He saw God in all of his existence (jamīʿ wujūdihi), because his existence completely became one of the eyes of God. He saw God by all the eyes, and he heard His speech from all the ears, and he came to experiential knowledge of God by all the hearts, until his eyes, ears, hearts, spirits and intellects were annihilated in God. God looked towards God for the sake of him as a representative of him, because the eyes of createdness had been annihilated in the eyes of God, and the eyes of God had returned to God, so God saw God, and God had experiential knowledge of God, and God heard from God as a mercy from Him to him, and as a kindness to him, because He hears and sees.718

However, the reverse is also taking place in this vision. Muhammad does not only see God through God. God is seeing Himself through his servant. Muhammad sees through the eye of God, while God uses the eye of Muhammad:

Do you not consider the end of the verse, His saying: {innahu huwa al-samīʿ al-baṣīr}. He heard the speech from Himself, and saw Himself by Himself. He was in post-

717 Rūzbihān does not quote it, but this idea is related to a ḥadīth qudsī attributed to Abū Ḥurayra much quoted in Sufi circles, commonly known as the ḥadīth al-nawāfil. The ḥadīth states: “When I love him, I become his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes, and his foot with which he walks.” Cf. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, 43.

718 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, II, 347-48.

270 eternity Hearing, Seeing, but here He hears and sees by the hearing and seeing of His servant and the seeing of His servant.719

Like al-Daylamī, Rūzbihān holds that Muhammad is capable of seeing God’s unadulterated essence. Since Muhammad is strong enough for the vision of God’s attributes in the highest and lowest malakūt, so argues Rūzbihān, he should also be “capable of seeing

His unadulterated essence without veil, reckoning, darkness, fog, detectiveness, without signs and without tokens. But he sees Him by Him, not by anything [else], and not by himself.”720

Also in his commentary on Surah al-Najm he firstly describes a process of

Muhammad surpassing his human form. The term ittiḥād is not used explicitly, but the process that Rūzbihān describes may be considered an expression of the same idea that was articulated in the former passage. Commenting on Q53:8 he describes Muhammad coming close to God by being ‘clothed’ in “the characteristics of the attributes (nuʿūt al-ṣifāt) and the lights of the essence.”721 By this process of iltibās Muhammad surpassed the deficiencies of createdness (ḥadthāniyya). Rūzbihān does not explicitly specify the implications of this statement, but one can say that to surpass the deficiencies of createdness implies becoming godlike. What follows does indeed hint to such an understanding by Rūzbihān. He describes how Muhammad firstly witnessed the attributes and almost stopped there due to the great pleasure that he experienced at that station. However, God made him travel further to His essence in which he was then annihilated: “He drowned in the sea of the essence, and nothing of his knowledge remained with him, nothing of his sight, nothing of his hearing, and nothing of his consciousness.”722 Again Rūzbihān describes a vision of God through God.

719 Ibid., II, 348.

720 Ibid.

721 Ibid., III, 357.

722 Ibid.

271 God ‘clothed’ Muhammad with a light of His sight, so that Muhammad saw God by the light of God.723

Rūzbihān confirms the vision with both the heart and the eye in his commentary on

Q53:11. He explains that only the vision of the heart is mentioned in the verse, while God did not mention the vision of the eye out of vigilant care. The eye-vision is a secret between

God and His beloved and is specific, while the vision of the heart is general. However, in the same passage he stresses that what the heart and the eye see is the same. God made him see

His beauty with his eye, which was “painted [like kuḥl] with the light of His essence and His attributes.”724 This vision of God’s beauty then arrived at the heart, seeing what the eye saw.

This vision did not remain confined to the eye: his entire body, all his senses and all the atoms of his existence saw Him. Therefore the vision of God by Muhammad, the truthful passionate lover (al-ʿāshiq al-ṣādiq), is the most complete: God did His utmost in this vision, leaving no veils between Him and Muhammad.725

9 Conclusion

Let us now return to the main points raised in the beginning of this chapter. We pointed out, among others, that while there is an abundance of studies on the theme of the isrāʾ and miʿrāj in Islamic literature, there is a relative silence on the aspect of the vision of God during that miʿrāj in relation to Sufism. In this chapter we hoped to fill this gap by a close reading of the commentary on verses related to the vision during the miʿrāj. The relative briefness of most Sufi commentators on the verses related to Muhammad’s heavenly journey, with Rūzbihān as notable exception, comes a bit as a surprise. Given the

723 Ibid.

724 Ibid., III, 359.

725 Ibid.

272 prominence of the theme of ascension in Sufism and the importance of this narrative for establishing the elevated rank of Muhammad through his ascension and vision of God one would expect much more. Only Rūzbihān provides a lengthy commentary on the relevant verses, and goes into great detail concerning the mode of vision of God by Muhammad. In the case of al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī one may explain their brevity by the fact that they had already made separate compilations of sayings on Muhammad’s ascension that contain commentary on the relevant verses in Surah al-Najm. Why Maybudī and al-Daylamī are relatively brief on the issue is more difficult to explain.

Despite this relative brevity in their commentary on the relevant verses, the commentaries still offer valuable information to come to a better understanding of Sufi conceptions of the vision during the miʿrāj, and their relation to conventional understandings. When raising the issue of the interpretation of the verses that deal with the visionary aspect of the miʿrāj in both conventional and ishārī commentaries, we focused on the relation between these two approaches to the text of the Qurʾān, and to the perceived subject and object of vision in the commentaries: is it considered a vision of God, or a vision of the angel Gabriel; and is it a vision by the eye, or by the heart? As we have seen, in conventional commentaries there is a difference of opinion on the issue, with as most notable options a vision of God by either the heart or the eye, or an angelic vision. In our period these options coexist, without a shared preference by exegetes for one

‘strongest’ opinion.

We were curious to see whether the Sufi commentaries stay close to these conventional commentaries in their understanding of these verses, or come up with an approach of their own. On the issue of the vision during the miʿrāj most of our Sufi authors are clear that they believe it to be a vision of God. The only exception is, as in the other case studies, al-Qushayrī, who prefers the option that Muhammad saw Gabriel. He categorically denies the possible interpretation that Muhammad has seen God during his heavenly

273 journey, not even by a contemplative vision with his heart. It appeared to be the case that the Sufi exegetes in favor of a divine vision optimally use the existing difference of opinion on the issue in conventional tafsīr, pushing the limits of the conventional intepretations to legitimize their descriptions of the visionary experience of God by Muhammad. They thus strictly speaking always remain within the boundaries of conventional interpretations: these intepretations conditioned how far they could go in their understanding of the vision of God. An exception to this is Rūzbihān, whose proposed mode of vision by unification

(ittiḥād) could not be anchored in conventional understandings of the verses. Rūzbihān himself does not problematize this however, and does not seek to reconcile his approach to the vision with the mainstream positions.

Yet again we have witnessed the relative absence of an element of genealogy in the commentaries. In the following tables we can see how the commentaries collected by al-

Sulamī on the first verse of Surah al-Isrāʾ and of Surah al-Najm are not incorporated in the later commentaries of al-Qushayrī, Maybudī and al-Daylamī, with very few exceptions. Only

Rūzbihān partly incorporates the sayings of al-Sulamī, more as a form of recognition of his predecessors than as a functionally integrated part of his own reflections.

Q17:1 in Qushayrī Maybudī Daylamī Rūzbihān Sulamī Wāsiṭī - - - + Abū Yazīd - - - + Ibn ʿAṭāʾ - - - + Jaʿfar - - - + Naṣrābādhī - - - - “one of them” - - - +

Q53:8 in Sulamī Qushayrī Maybudī Daylamī Rūzbihān Jaʿfar - - - - Jaʿfar + - - - Qāsim - - - -

274 Wāsiṭī - - - - Wāsiṭī - - - -

Q53:10 in Sulamī Qushayrī Maybudī Daylamī Rūzbihān Jaʿfar - - - + Wāsiṭī - - - + Jaʿfar - - - +

Q53:11 in Sulamī Qushayrī Maybudī Daylamī Rūzbihān Sahl - - +- + Ibn ʿAṭāʾ - - - + Bundār - - - - Ibn ʿAṭāʾ - - - + Jaʿfar - - - -

This lack of genealogy also shows in the diversity of style and content of the commentaries.

Like in the earlier case studies the authors do not offer uniform positions at all, and although certain themes are shared – for example transcending above human forms to be able to see God- all five authors bring their own specific concepts, models of seeing and accents to their discussion of the verses. Again the relative originality of Sufi tafsīr comes to the fore, as compared to its conventional counterparts.

275 276 Conclusion

At the outset of this study we formulated two complementary objectives. On the one hand we expressed the wish to construct a history of Sufi eschatology using Qurʾān commentaries as our main source. Our two main hypotheses concerning Sufi eschatology were that the vision of God is the most central theme for Sufi imaginations of the hereafter, and that Sufis did not strictly uphold the dunyā/ākhira divide. We expected that although

Sufis leave a diachronic conception of history and eschatology intact, it goes hand in hand with a synchronic understanding of the dunyā/ākhira relationship. The boundary between this world and the otherworld can be crossed by seeing God in this-worldly life, a ‘taste’ of the vision in the world to come.

On the other hand, by using this thematic framework we had the ambition to generate new knowledge about the genre of Sufi Qurʾān commentaries in the Earlier Middle

Period (950-1250 CE). Concerning Sufi Qurʾān commentaries we were mainly interested to see to which extent Sufi commentaries are genealogical, given the popular image of Sufism being ‘experiential’ and thus more subjective and original.

In this conclusion, I will deal with each of these questions and hypotheses in the order in which I have introduced them in the preceding paragraphs. I will end by suggesting three avenues for future research: the study of later centuries of both Sufi eschatology and Sufi tafsīr; the need for critical editions of Sufi Qur’ān commentaries; and possible theoretical and methodological advances.

Sufi Qurʾān commentaries proved to be a useful and varied source for the reconstruction of a (partial) history of Sufi eschatology. It must be said however, that the expectation that verses in Paradise and Hell would provoke a lot of commentary and could thus be complementary to the scattered discussions in Sufi handbooks, was only partly fulfilled. Just as Sufi authors hardly included eschatological ideas in their handbooks of

277 Sufism, they mostly also skipped those verses that deal with Paradise and Hell in their commentaries. When they did comment upon these verses, it was rather to make a point on hierarchies of nearness and vision than to elaborate on understandings of reward and punishment. The study of these commentaries has thus mainly further corroborated the findings of El-Saleh and Lange: there is a relative disregard and in some cases even contempt of Sufis for the rewards and punishments of Paradise and Hell –without denying their physical reality- motivated by a God-centered understanding of the hereafter.726

Already early in our study it thus became clear that a study of Sufi eschatology mainly entails a study of the concepts of nearness to and vision of God. If our authors were at all motivated by thoughts of reward or punishment, what interested them was the reward of nearness to and vision of God or the punishment of being cut off from God and veiled from the vision. Fear of the physical punishments of Hell or hope for physical rewards of Paradise are generally considered as a veil separating the seeker from God. In some cases, a motivation by reward or punishment is even seen as a form of ascribing partners to God

(shirk).

We could not distinguish a clear linear historical development in the Sufi ideas on eschatology. True, all five commentaries proved to be very varied in style and content.

However, it is difficult to explain these differences and varieties in subjects as a linear development that runs in parallel with developments within broader Sufism. An example is the stratification of the rewards of Paradise. As we have seen, this idea is most strongly present in Maybudī, strong enough to consider it a noteworthy change in content compared to the preceding works. The idea is not new however, and does not come at the end of a clear linear historical development. It can also be found in sayings collected by al-Sulamī and in the work of al-Qushayrī. The same can be said for other salient themes: although they may be more dominant in one work than in the other, they are mostly variants of

726 El-Saleh, Vie future, 91-111; Lange, Paradise and Hell, ch. 7.

278 themes already existent from an early stage, expressed in a style typical for the author in question. An exception to this is Rūzbihān’s ideas on mercy and relief for the inhabitants of

Hell. Rūzbihān’s vision on this issue has no precedent, and varieties on this theme cannot be found in the earlier commentaries. Here his position does mirror broader developments in

Sufism: Rūzbihān’s position on the non-perpetuity of the punishment of Hell has striking similarities with the ideas of his contemporary Ibn ʿArabī. The idea of manifestations of mercy in Hell was relatively new in Sufism in the time of Rūzbihān, and he was the first of the commentators to incorporate this in his Qurʾān commentary.

We have also seen that the boundary between this world and the otherworld is generally imagined to be porous and crossable, mainly by means of Sufi stations and states, among which communion (waṣla), nearness and vision were most prominent. To visually capture the structure of the relationship between this world and the otherworld we proposed the following diagram:

Taking the prophets as paradigmatic seekers, this scheme –although not to be found in each commentary- was useful to come to an understanding of discussions on the vision of God in

279 this world and the otherworld. Based on this larger scheme the following table gives a simplified but clear overview of the opinions of our authors on the theme of vision:

Vision of Vision of Vision of Vision of Vision of God in God in this God by God by God by hereafter world Adam Moses Muhammad Sulamī Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Qushayrī Yes No No No Maybudī Yes No Yes No Yes Daylamī Yes Yes Yes Yes Rūzbihān Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Is the theme of nearness to and vision of God indeed as pervasive as I expected in the introduction? For the greater part, yes. The relative dominance or absence of the theme of vision appeared to be one of the most significant differences between two –not mutually exclusive- tendencies within Sufism: on the one hand the tendency that stresses passionate love (ʿishq) and longing (shawq) for God and experiential knowledge (maʿrifa) of God, on the other hand a tendency that stresses good character and religious discipline. Most authors are closer to the former trend than to the latter. Only al-Qushayrī is not genuinely interested in the topic of the vision of God, in the same way in which the themes of love and longing are not as pervasively present in his work compared to the other works. He can thus be considered a representative of the second trend, although he is not always as sober in his style and content as he is generally perceived to have been. Especially in the case of the request of Moses to see God –which he considers not to have been granted- al-Qushayrī shows himself from an ecstatic side not typical for him, interpreting Moses’ request as ensuing from passionate love and longing for God evoked by hearing Him. Although he shuns interpreting it as a fulfilled request, his discussion of the request of Moses does confirm the entangledness of the themes of love, longing and vision. For the other authors the theme was present to differing degrees. The commentaries of al-Sulamī and Rūzbihān

280 stand out in that the theme of vision is dominant. It is no coincidence that they are also the sources that contain the largest amount of commentary inspired by the themes of love and longing. The same can be said for Maybudī. Although he generally denies the this-worldly vision, the this-worldly longing for the vision of the hereafter is pervasive and a leading motif in his understanding of the meaning of this-worldly life. The otherworldly journey of

Muhammad in which he sees God is even mentioned as the main reason for creation and for the banishment of Adam. While al-Daylamī gives a lot of space to defending this-worldly vision by the heart in his other works, this is not equally present in his commentary, except for some passages that he seemingly copied from his other treatises. Al-Daylamī did not attach the theme of vision to prophetology very prominently. While some modest commentary is given on the modes of vision by Moses and Muhammad, the story of Adam hardly provokes commentary, and is not related to the vision of God.

Can we now reach a typology of this-worldly visions of God in Sufism? Can our five commentators neatly be classified using Wolfson’s typology of contemplative-introvertive and contemplative-cognitive vision? There appeared to be a great diversity in approaches to the vision of God, with some shared structures. All described modes of this-worldly vision can be categorized as contemplative visions by the eye of the heart: although not denying the theoretical possibility none of the Sufi commentators claimed an ocular vision of God to actually take place in this world. Muhammad admittedly was considered by some to have seen God by the physical eye. This physical vision may have taken place in dunyā in the sense of time, in this-worldly pre-eschatological life, but not in the spatial sense:

Muhammad travelled to the otherworld to see God. Something similar can be said about the conceptualization of contemplative visions like Moses seeing God. Even though this vision was consensually considered a contemplative vision, those authors who claimed Moses saw

God all let him first pass beyond the boundaries of his human existence. Only outside his human form, after having transgressed the boundaries of this-worldly restraints, was he

281 able to see God. All authors thus seem to agree that contemplatively seeing God is something that surpasses human form. Sometimes this act of seeing is conceived of as a state of annihilation (fanāʾ), or in the example of Rūzbihān as unification (ittiḥād) with God.

Does this make it an introvertive rather than a cognitive vision, to use the distinction that

Wolfson makes?727 Are they purely intellectual, beyond image and form, or are they within the phenomenological parameters of human experience and language? This distinction may be more difficult to uphold. Although many proposed modes of contemplative vision are described to take place after having transgressed human form, the descriptions are still primarily sensory and seem to be conceived as human experiences. This is most clear in the case of indirect visions of God through creation, a vision of His attributes (ṣifāt) and acts

(afʿāl) as manifested in the world, rather than His essence. They fall within the realm of human perception, but still do not attribute a form or image to God – the intellectual vision of God is deduced from and mediated by the sensory perception of creation. Even the somewhat extreme case of Rūzbihān’s idea that Muhammad seeing and hearing God is actually God seeing and hearing Himself in a state of unification with Muhammad may be said to be conceived within parameters of human experience. God, holds Rūzbihān, perceives Himself through the ears and eyes of Muhammad.

How did the inward (bāṭin) or allusive (ishārī) approach to the text of the Qurʾān relate to interpretations of the outward (ẓāhir) meanings of the Qurʾān? Did these inward and allusive interpretations divert radically from conventional understandings, or did they accommodate these understandings? The claim by Steven Katz that mysticism generally is conservative in its nature and cannot be understood in isolation of its larger religious discursive context seems to apply to our Sufi authors, too. They generally showed great awareness of and respect for theological positions involved in the matters of their discussion, and did not exhibit a tendency to contradict outward (ẓāhir), conventional

727 Wolfson, Speculum, 58-61.

282 understandings of Qurʾānic verses. This holds equally true for their understandings of the vision of God. While some of the positions they took may at first sight be seen as Qurʾānic readings against the grain, closer inspection reveals that doctrines upheld by their instutional surroundings were always implicitly present in their works and determined their conceptions of the vision of God in this world and the otherworld. They consciously employed themes and discussions present within the broader Islamic tradition to support their claims, and seemed eager to respect the theological boundaries of their age. The solution of a contemplative vision by the eye of the heart that the authors in favor of a this- worldly vision propagated corresponded with the exegetical and theological discussions on

Surah al-Najm. The difference of opinion on the modality of the vision described in Surah al-

Najm thus was a window of opportunity for Sufi authors to legitimize their ideas of indirect modes of vision during this-worldly life. They could thus give legitimacy to their mystical longing for the vision of God while remaining within the boundaries of a solid (mostly

Ashʿarī) theological framework that they without exception adhered to. All authors remained close to the centre and its institutions, and wished to remain so. Their mystical ideas were rooted in and determined by their broader religious understanding.

As for the issue of genealogy and originality, we can conclude that the four Qurʾān commentaries following on al-Sulamī all contain elements of both genealogy and originality. These elements appeared not to be mutually exclusive, and could easily coexist within one and the same commentary. There appeared to be a great diversity in style and content, and genealogy generally did not determine the structure and content of the commentaries as much as is generally the case in its conventional counterparts. When earlier authorities were quoted, it was in a rather loose, non-binding and unstructured manner, and often only after the author had mapped out his own positions and reflections.

Earlier sayings and opinions did not steer new discussions into a specific direction, and although a commentator could incorporate earlier material when he saw it fit or thought it

283 was relevant, he did not necessarily feel the need to only express his own thought against the backdrop of earlier discussions. Sufi tafsīr, in sum, seems to be less ‘conservative’ in its nature than its conventional counterparts and to leave more room for the individual author: there seems to be more room for innovation and subjective understandings of the verse.

Now, what is the way forward in both the study of Sufi eschatology and of Sufi

Qurʾān commentaries? For Sufi eschatology a longue durée history that also focuses on later periods is a worthwhile and promising enterprise. Lange’s overview does not reach far into later periods and stops at approximately the 13th century with figures like Rūmī, Ibn ʿArabī and al-Nasafī. El-Saleh even considers the later periods irrelevant, adhering to a view of decadence and decline in later Islamic history that has long been dominant in the historiography of Islamic civilization. This notion of a cultural decline in later Islamic history is more and more being revised in Islamic Studies, and it is only logical that later developments in Sufi eschatology up to the present time should be reevaluated as well. As noted in the introduction, there were still significant developments in later periods which remain largely unexplored.728 For this goal Sufi Qurʾān commentaries of these later periods may prove to be a rich and useful source.

To be able to also include Sufi Qurʾān commentaries of later periods and to make longue durée comparisons of commentaries on specific verses it is very urgent that more critical editions of Sufi works of tafsīr are published. This is a tremendous task that does not quite seem to be in sync with the larger developments within Islamic Studies. It is telling that the only critical edition available to me beside Böwering’s edition of al-Sulamī’s Ziyādāt was an unpublished PhD dissertation from Turkey. These critical editions should also lead to more in-depth studies of individual works of tafsīr and their authors. This study could only be undertaken because of the recent valuable publications of such monographs within

728 See Introduction, footnote 40.

284 this specific period. The most urgent task in my opinion is the publication of the critical edition of Rūzbihān’s ʿArāʾis al-bayān, after which an in-depth study and monograph on this rich source will become possible, comparable to the works of Nguyen and Keeler.729 No other source in this study appeared to be equally complex, no other contained so much creative thinking and original material. Also, Rūzbihān’s commentary seems to foreshadow several themes that later become important in the school of Ibn ʿArabī. I believe an encompassing study of his tafsīr may be very helpful for a better understanding of the shift from the period that is often called ‘classical’ Sufism to the period of the great ‘schools’ of

Sufism. Also the study of al-Daylamī’s tafsīr in relation to his other works deserves the attention of the field. Although he admittedly is an obscure author and may indeed be considered a ‘minor’ figure, his thought is remarkable enough to deserve deeper analysis.

Publications of his Qurʾan commentary and his other treatises with a content analysis may well elucidate strands of Sufism that have not become part of both the Islamic and academic

‘canon’ of Sufi authors and ideas.

Furthermore, I believe there is still a world to win in tafsīr studies with respect to methodology. Now that the study of tafsīr is gaining scholarly popularity and the contours of a separate discipline of study are becoming visible, it may be the right moment to become more innovative and systematic in methodology as well. Especially in regard to the issue of the genealogical nature of the genre a lot more research should be done, based on a more clearly defined and systematic methodology. The statement of Calder that “[t]he process of citing authorities and providing multiple readings is (…) a means to establish the individuality or the artistry of a given mufassir”730 deserves a systematic methodology that helps to carefully trace and reconstruct lines of transmission and dissemination of exegetical opinions, and place them within typologies of exegesis and broader schools of

729 Nguyen, Sufi Master; Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics.

730 Calder, “Tafsīr from Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr,” 103-04.

285 thought. This study has only partially achieved such a systematic reading, partly because of a lack of good examples to follow in this particular respect. The recent trend in Islamic

Studies to delve into late medieval commentary traditions may offer a suitable methodological framework for future studies, with adaptations and innovations to fit the particularities of the tafsīr tradition.731 It is my hope that the academic study of tafsīr literature will soon become large enough as a field to take this next step in methodological innovation as a communal enterprise.

Another point of attention is the application of theories and approaches developed in Religious Studies to these Sufi sources and the ideas reflected in them. It can be fairly stated that the field of Islamic Studies lags behind other areas of study in Religious Studies in this respect. Now that more and more texts are available to us, and much of them is covered in excellent historicizing studies, the time is right to not only engage with these texts by philological and historical methods, but to cautiously go a step beyond that. In this study I have used some elements of theories developed in the study of Jewish mysticism, most notably Stephen Katz and Elliot Wolfson, but this can still be pushed much further. A good example would be the vivid field of body and sensory studies within Religious Studies, and more broadly in the Humanities and Anthropology. It would be very worthwhile to

731 Eric van Lit for example has been very innovative in his methodology of reading the commentary tradition on al-Suhrawardī. With a highly technical and at times quantitave method he has shown how textual relationships over larger timespans can be reconstructed by a systematic and almost mathematic comparison of form, style and textual content of a sequence of commentaries on a shared text. Such innovations deserve to be taken seriously by the field of tafsīr studies as well, and may give a great impulse to our understanding of what Calder calls “a declaration of loyalty” through the process of citing authorities and providing multiple readings. Calder, “Tafsīr from

Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr,” 103-04. Lambertus W.C. van Lit, “Eschatology and the World of Image in the

Commentary Tradition on Suhrawardī” (Utrecht University PhD Dissertation, 2014).

286 work on a more encompassing study of ideas on the senses (both spiritual and physical) in

Sufism. The study before you may be considered a launch pad for such larger enterprises.

To conclude, the study of tafsīr in general, and the study of Sufi tafsīr in particular have only recently really taken off. I hope that I have been able to give a modest ruʾya into the great potentiality of this field. It is only a dhawq of the many fruits that the branches of the tree of tafsīr have to offer. There are still many Gardens to explore.

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315 316 Samenvatting in het Nederlands

De studie die voor u ligt heeft twee complementaire en elkaar ondersteunende doelstellingen. Op de eerste plaats heeft het tot doel een geschiedenis te schrijven van voorstellingen van het hiernamaals in het soefisme in de periode van 950 tot 1250 CE, met een specifieke focus op het thema van het zien van God. Op de tweede plaats heeft het tot doel tot een beter begrip te komen van vijf soeficommentaren op de Koran en hun onderlinge relatie uit dezelfde periode, te weten Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr van Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-

Sulamī (d. 412/1021), Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt van ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072), Kashf al- asrār wa-ʿuddat al-abrār van Rāshid al-Dīn Maybudī (d. eerste helft 12e eeuw), Taṣdīq al- maʿārif van Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī (d. 587/1191?) en ʿArāʾis al-bayān fī ḥaqāʾiq al-qurʾān van

Rūzbihān al-Baqlī (d. 606/1209). De complementariteit ligt in de verwachting dat soeficommentaren op de Koran een onmisbare bron vormen voor het schrijven van een dergelijke geschiedenis, terwijl een benadering van deze commentaren via het thema van eschatologie tegelijkertijd nieuw inzicht verschaft over deze nog weinig bestudeerde bronnen zelf.

Betreft soefi-eschatologie gaat de aandacht voornamelijk uit naar het thema van het overschrijden van de grens tussen het wereldse leven en het hiernamaals in de vorm van het zien van God. In islamitische voorstellingen van het hiernamaals in het algemeen, en soefistische in het bijzonder, is de scheiding tussen het wereldse leven en het hiernamaals niet heel strikt. De scheidslijn tussen de twee bestaat wel, maar kan op verschillende manieren overschreden worden. In deze studie wordt gesteld dat het overschrijden van die grens tussen de twee domeinen in het soefisme voornamelijk plaatsvindt middels de geclaimde ervaring van het samenkomen met (liqāʾ en wiṣāl) en zien (ruʾya) van God. In soefivoorstellingen wordt het Paradijs op de eerste plaats beschouwd als het domein waar een ontmoeting plaatsvindt met God, waar de gelovige nabijheid ervaart en de gelegenheid

317 heeft God te zien. Terwijl de meeste soennitische geleerden het zien van God beperkt hebben tot bepaalde momenten in het Paradijs, wordt dat in sommige soefivoorstellingen een eeuwig en ononderbroken spektakel. Het hiernamaals is idealiter dus geheel op God gericht: de andere genietingen van het Paradijs zijn in deze voorstellingen niets dan sluiers voor deze ontmoeting met God, terwijl de bestraffing van de Hel juist voorgesteld wordt als deprivatie van nabijheid tot en het zien van God.

Sommige soefi’s hebben nabijheid tot en het zien van God ook beschouwd als de voornaamste karakteristieken van het oorspronkelijke paradijs dat door Adam bewoond werd. Met de verbanning van Adam uit dit oorspronkelijke Paradijs, is de mens deze karakteristieken ontnomen: de voornaamste karakteristiek van het wereldse leven is volgens deze opvatting het ontbreken van nabijheid tot God en het zien van Hem. Voor sommige soefi’s, voornamelijk degenen onder hen die de nadruk leggen op gepassioneerde liefde (ʿishq) voor en verlangen (shawq) naar God, was het verlangen naar deze visuele ontmoeting met God in het hiernamaals zo groot dat ze het al in deze wereld wilden ervaren. Sommige spirituele condities die ze claimden te ervaren in het wereldse bestaan namen dan ook de vorm aan van een ‘voorproef’ van de ontmoeting met God in het hiernamaals.

Om deze geclaimde ervaringen te ondersteunen, beargumenteerden sommige soefigeleerden theologisch dat God ook in deze wereld gezien kan worden: de hoogste beloning in het Paradijs wordt zo naar het wereldse leven gebracht. Twee verhalen uit de

Koran werden vaak gebruikt om een visie in het wereldse leven te legitimeren, gebaseerd op twee profetische modellen: het niet ingewilligde verzoek van Mozes om God te zien op de berg Sinaï (Q7:143) en de omstreden visuele ontmoeting met God van Mohammed, gelezen in Q53:1-18. Deze twee passages uit de Koran vormen twee casussen van het overschrijden van de grens tussen het wereldse leven en het hiernamaals in aparte hoofdstukken van deze studie (Hoofdstuk Vijf en Zes), samen met soefivoorstellingen van

318 de eerste overschrijding van die grens, te weten de verbanning van Adam uit het oorspronkelijke Paradijs (Hoofdstuk Drie) en de ultieme overschrijding van de grens door de gehele mensheid naar het hiernamaals aan het einde der tijden (Hoofdstuk Twee). Dit valt schematisch als volgt weer te geven:

Betreft de soeficommentaren op de Koran ligt de voornaamste interesse in de relatie met ‘conventionele’ vormen van koranexegese, en de kwestie van genealogie en originaliteit. Betreft de eerste kwestie wordt gesteld dat soeficommentaren niet in isolatie begrepen kunnen worden van de bredere context. Om tot een goed begrip van deze bronnen te komen, is een beschrijving van ideeën van individuele auteurs niet voldoende.

Men dient het bredere milieu waarin deze teksten geschreven en gelezen werden in ogenschouw te nemen, en de genealogie van de ideeën te analyseren. Door de thema’s uit de soeficommentaren te vergelijken met thema’s die in dezelfde periode in ‘conventionele’ korancommentaren probeert deze studie tot een beter begrip te komen van de relatie tussen het soefisme in deze periode en de bredere islamitische traditie waar het onderdeel van was. Het bestuderen van genealogie van ideeën en originaliteit in de commentaren is interessant vanwege het gangbare idee dat het genre van korancommentaar (tafsīr) in zijn

319 essentie genealogisch is en conservatief: een commentator zal zijn eigen ideeën slechts mondjesmaat laten horen, en altijd alleen tegen de achtergrond van eerdere tradities en meningen. Dit botst in het geval van soeficommentaren met het wijdverspreide idee dat soefisme geworteld is in ‘ervaring’ en daardoor meer origineel en subjectief zou zijn. De vraag is dan in hoeverre soeficommentaren dezelfde eigenschap van genealogie bezit als meer conventionele genres van korancommentaar, of dat soeficommentaren meer subjectief en ‘origineel’ zijn in hun commentaar op de tekst van de Koran.

Hoofdstuk Een vormt een eerste kennismaking met de commentaren, hun auteurs en hun historische context. De opkomst van deze vorm van koranexegese wordt geplaatst in het milieu van Nishapur, waar in de periode van al-Sulamī en al-Qushayrī belangrijke ontwikkelingen plaatsvonden zowel op het gebied van soefisme als koranexegese. Het verzamelen en bundelen van soeficommentaren op de Koran was een manier om het soefisme een volwaardige plek te geven binnen de tot volle wasdom komende islamitische wetenschappen, en het soefisme legitimiteit te verschaffen door het expliciet met de Koran te verbinden. De vraag wordt ook besproken of het überhaupt legitiem is te spreken van een genre van soeficommentaren op de Koran. Deze vraag wordt deels positief beantwoord.

Hoewel er groot verschil is in stijl en inhoud van de werken, is er wel continuïteit in de hermeneutische principes waarop de auteurs zich zeggen te beroepen. Allen gebruiken min of meer dezelfde termen en begrippen om aan te duiden op welke wijze ze de Koran uitleggen in hun werken. Er is ook duidelijk sprake van een genealogische relatie tussen de werken: alle latere auteurs grijpen direct of indirect terug op de werken van al-Sulamī en al-Qushayrī. Daaruit wordt duidelijk dat deze twee eerste auteurs iets nieuws en distinctiefs begonnen zijn binnen het genre van tafsīr, waar latere auteurs zich toe wilden en moesten verhouden om legitimiteit te geven aan hun eigen toevoegingen. In die zin kan men zeker over een apart genre spreken. Of de term ‘soefi’ geschikt is om dat genre te duiden, daar kan

320 men echter over twisten. De auteurs gebruikten zelf het woord ‘soefi’ niet tot nauwelijks om hun hermeneutische visie te verwoorden. Dit vraagstuk wordt nog deels opengelaten.

Hoofdstuk Twee vormt de basis voor de focus op de thematiek van het zien van God in de daaropvolgende hoofdstukken. Hier worden in brede zin de voorstellingen van het hiernamaals in de soeficommentaren besproken. De belangrijkste conclusies daarvan zijn dat er een algemene tendens van onverschilligheid is in de soeficommentaren naar de fysieke beloningen en bestraffingen van het hiernamaals, wat ook leidt tot weinig commentaar op koranverzen die over Paradijs en Hel gaan. Het eschatologische thema dat alle vijf commentaren duidelijk gemeen hebben is dat van nabijheid tot, ontmoeten met en zien van God in het hiernamaals. Het Paradijs en de Hel behoren volgens de auteurs niet de voornaamste motivatie van de gelovige te zijn en kunnen zelfs een obstakel vormen voor de enige goede motivatie die er voor de gelovige toe zou moeten doen: het verlangen naar de ontmoeting met en het zien van God. Een ander thema dat de commentaren gemeen hebben, is een neiging tot stratificatie van de beloningen van het Paradijs. In alle commentaren worden varianten genoemd op een aparte beloning voor de massa van gelovigen (ʿawāmm), en voor de elite (khawāṣṣ): de gewone gelovigen laten zich afleiden door de fysieke geneugtes van het Paradijs, terwijl de elite begrijpt dat alleen God ertoe doet.

In Hoofdstuk Drie worden verschillende aspecten besproken van de verbanning van

Adam uit het Paradijs. Daarin worden twee voorname attitudes onderscheiden: de ene negatief, de andere positief. De negatieve attitude is gerelateerd aan de attitude van ascese en verzaking van het wereldse (zuhd en dhamm al-dunyā). Adam’s verbanning wordt als een vernedering voor de mens beschouwd, die in het wereldse niets anders behoort te doen dan huilen en het wereldse verzaken tot de terugkeer naar het Paradijs een feit is. De positieve attitude is beïnvloed door de liefdesmystiek, en beschouwt het wereldse leven als iets dat de mens verrijkt en tot werkelijke liefde tot God brengt. Het wereldse leven is weliswaar

321 moeilijk, maar men kan alleen tot ervaringskennis van God (maʿrifa) komen door hier doorheen te gaan. Hier speelt het zien van God een rol: het verlies van de nabijheid en de visie die Adam ervoer, leidt tijdens het wereldse leven tot een gevoel van gemis en diep verlangen naar een terugkeer naar God in het hiernamaals. Dit verhaal biedt een positieve mystieke theodicee: het lijdzame wereldse leven verwijderd van God maakt de mens uiteindelijk meer compleet, middels de liefde voor en verlangen naar God die het teweeg brengt.

Hoofdstuk Vier biedt een excursie naar discussies over het zien van God in zowel deze wereld als het hiernamaals in andere theologisch georiënteerde werken van al-

Qushayrī, al-Daylamī en Rūzbihān. Alle auteurs bevestigen het zien van God met het blote oog in het hiernamaals. Ze wijzen een visie van God met het blote oog in het wereldse leven echter af. Wel worden verschillende vormen van contemplatieve visie middels het hart in het wereldse leven bepleit. Zo wordt middels de theologische constructie van het oog van het hart (ʿayn al-qalb) tegemoet gekomen aan het mystieke verlangen God ook in deze wereld te zien. Waar de minder op liefdesmystiek georiënteerde al-Qushayrī erg terughoudend is in het bespreken hiervan, speelt het een prominente rol in de werken van al-Daylamī en Rūzbihān.

Hoofdstuk Vijf neemt de exegese onder de loep van vers 143 uit de zevende soera van de Koran, waarin Mozes God vraagt Zichzelf te tonen zodat Mozes Hem kan zien. Het koranvers wekt de indruk dat God dit weigert, en zo wordt het doorgaans ook in conventionele exegese uitgelegd. Niet alle soeficommentaren beschouwen het echter als een complete weigering. Sommige soeficommentatoren, maar niet alle, stellen dat God Zich wel degelijk indirect aan Mozes liet zien, middels contemplatieve vormen van visie middels het hart, of middels indirecte manifestatie (tajallī) in de schepping. Zo kan het verlangen naar het zien van God tijdelijk worden hersteld in het wereldse leven. De seclusie van

322 veertig dagen van Mozes vormt zo voor de soefi’s een mystiek model om het lichamelijke te overstijgen en in een verhoogde spirituele staat God te horen en te zien.

In Hoofdstuk Zes wordt de exegese van een veelbesproken koranpassage besproken die in exegese geassocieerd wordt met de hemelreis van Mohammed. In deze passage wordt een visuele ontmoeting besproken tussen twee in de Korantekst zelf onbenoemd gelaten entiteiten. In conventionele exegese wordt dit op verschillende manieren ingevuld, waarbij de belangrijkste drie opties zijn dat ofwel Mohammed God zag met het blote oog, ofwel met zijn hart, ofwel dat Mohammed de engel Gabriël (Jibrīl) zag. In latere exegese is de derde optie dominant geworden, maar in onze periode spelen de eerste twee opties ook een grote rol. In de soeficommentaren –met al-Qushayrī als uitzondering- wordt dit exegetische verschil van mening ten volle benut om te bevestigen dat Mohammed op een ultiem spiritueel moment inderdaad God gezien heeft.

Het thema van het zien van God in bovengenoemde casussen laat zich in de volgende tabel samenvatten:

God zien in God zien Adam ziet Mozes ziet Mohammed hiernamaals in deze God God ziet God wereld Sulamī Ja Ja Ja Ja Ja Qushayrī Ja Nee Nee Nee Maybudī Ja Nee Ja Nee Ja Daylamī Ja Ja Ja Ja Rūzbihān Ja Ja Ja Ja Ja

Welke grotere conclusies kunnen nu uit deze casussen getrokken worden? Al vroeg in de studie werd het duidelijk dat in de bronnen een relatieve desinteresse, en in sommige gevallen zelfs verachting dominant is voor de fysieke bestraffing en beloning in het hiernamaals: de motivatie van de gelovige dient alleen om God zelf te draaien. Zijn de thema’s van nabijheid tot en het zien van God daarmee inderdaad zo alomtegenwoordig als

323 verwacht? Voor het grootste gedeelte wel. De relatieve dominantie of afwezigheid van het thema van het zien van God lijkt een groot verschil te zijn tussen twee –elkaar niet uitsluitende- trends binnen het soefisme: enerzijds een trend die de nadruk legt op gepassioneerde liefde (ʿishq), en verlangen (shawq) naar en ervaringskennis (maʿrifa) van

God, anderzijds een trend die de nadruk legt op het verfijnen van het karakter en goede manieren. De meeste auteurs in deze studie staan in verschillende mate dichterbij de eerste trend dan bij de tweede, wat gepaard gaat met uitgebreide besprekingen van het zien van

God en het in verschillende mate ook in het wereldse leven plaatsen van een spirituele visie van God. Alleen al-Qushayrī toont heel beperkt interesse in het thema van het zien van God, zoals ook de thema’s van gepassioneerde liefde voor en verlangen naar God nauwelijks een rol spelen in zijn korancommentaar.

Betreft de relatie tussen soeficommentaar en meer conventionele vormen van korancommentaar kan vastgesteld worden dat de soeficommentatoren zich in het algemeen goed bewust waren van gangbare theologische posities en exegeses en deze ook respecteerden in hun eigen uitleg van verzen. Vrijwel nooit werd de exoterische uitleg van verzen expliciet tegengesproken. Dit geldt ook voor het zien van God: de oplossing van een spirituele, contemplatieve visie van God in het wereldse leven is een theologisch zorgvuldig geformuleerde constructie om tegemoet te komen aan de doctrine dat God alleen met het blote oog gezien kan worden in het hiernamaals.

Betreft de kwestie van genealogie en originaliteit in de soeficommentaren kan geconcludeerd worden dat beide elementen aanwezig zijn. Latere commentatoren grepen allemaal terug op eerdere commentatoren –met name op het korancommentaar van al-

Sulamī. In die zin kan men zeker spreken van een genealogisch genre. Dit element van genealogie is echter niet zodanig dominant aanwezig in de werken dat het de structuur, stijl en inhoud bepaalt, zoals in meer conventionele commentaren vaak wel het geval is. De auteurs nemen grote vrijheid voor hun eigen vaak zeer persoonlijke reflecties en inzichten,

324 die niet zelden eerst genoemd worden. Vaak worden eerdere autoriteiten pas daarna genoemd, en niet volgens een vast stramien. Soeficommentaren lijken dus minder

‘conservatief’ te zijn dan conventionele commentaren. Er is meer ruimte voor de individuele auteur, wat gepaard gaat met meer ruimte voor nieuwe ideeën en meer subjectieve interpretaties van verzen.

325 326 Curriculum Vitae

Pieter Coppens werd op 31 juli 1983 geboren te Ølgod, Denemarken. Hij heeft Arabische Taal en Cultuur gestudeerd aan de Radboud Universiteit te Nijmegen. Zowel zijn BA (2007) als

MA (2008) rondde hij cum laude af, met een specialisatie in Islam en Geschiedenis. Tijdens en na zijn studie heeft hij regelmatig tijd doorgebracht in de Arabische wereld voor aanvullende studie, in onder andere Syrië en Egypte. Na een extra studiejaar Filosofie en

Theologie met een beurs van Stichting Thomas More begon hij in 2011 met een promotietraject in het ERC-project ‘The Here and the Hereafter in Islamic Traditions’ onder leiding van Prof. Christian Lange aan de Universiteit Utrecht. Dankzij een 4-jarige onderzoeksbeurs van de Netherlands Interuniversity School of Islamic Studies (NISIS) en een beurs van Fulbright voor een onderzoekssemester aan Yale University ligt het eindresultaat daarvan nu voor u.

Pieter Coppens was born in Ølgod (Denmark) on 31 July 1983. He studied Arabic Language and Culture at the Radboud University in Nijmegen. He finished both his BA (2007) and MA

(2008) cum laude, specializing in Islam and History. During and after his studies he regularly spent time in the Arab world for additional studies, among others in Syria and Egypt. After an additional study year of Philosophy and Theology with a scholarship from the Thomas

More Foundation he started in 2011 with his doctoral research within the framework of the

ERC-project ‘The Here and the Hereafter in Islamic Traditions’ under supervision of Prof.

Christian Lange at Utrecht University. Thanks to a 4-year scholarship of the Netherlands

Interuniversity School of Islamic Studies (NISIS) and a scholarship of Fulbright for a research semester at Yale University the end result is now between your hands.

327

Quaestiones Infinitae PUBLICATIONS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES

VOLUME 21. D. VAN DALEN, Torens en Fundamenten (valedictory lecture), 1997. VOLUME 22. J.A. BERGSTRA, W.J. FOKKINK, W.M.T. MENNEN, S.F.M. VAN VLIJMEN, Spoorweglogica via EURIS, 1997. VOLUME 23. I.M. CROESE, Simplicius on Continuous and Instantaneous Change (dissertation), 1998. VOLUME 24. M.J. HOLLENBERG, Logic and Bisimulation (dissertation), 1998. VOLUME 25. C.H. LEIJENHORST, Hobbes and the Aristotelians (dissertation), 1998. VOLUME 26. S.F.M. VAN VLIJMEN, Algebraic Specification in Action (dissertation), 1998. VOLUME 27. M.F. VERWEIJ, Preventive Medicine Between Obligation and Aspiration (dissertation), 1998. VOLUME 28. J.A. BERGSTRA, S.F.M. VAN VLIJMEN, Theoretische Software-Engineering: kenmerken, faseringen en classificaties, 1998. VOLUME 29. A.G. WOUTERS, Explanation Without A Cause (dissertation), 1999. VOLUME 30. M.M.S.K. SIE, Responsibility, Blameworthy Action & Normative Disagreements (dissertation), 1999. VOLUME 31. M.S.P.R. 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