234 Book Reviews / Islamic Law and Society 16 (2009) 231-238

Rebel between Spirit and Law: Ahmad Zarruq, Sainthood and Authority in . By Scott Kugle. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. Pp. xv + 305. ISBN 0-253-34711-4. $49.95.

The topic of this book is the Moroccan Sufi Aḥmad b. Aḥmad al-Zarrūq (d. 899/ 1494). As the title suggests, however, the author weaves the life story of Zarrūq into a much wider pattern of the different ways to be a Sufi, and of the relationship between spirituality and temporal authority. Zarrūq lived in a tempestuous time in Moroccan history marked by the fall of the Marīnid dynasty, revolution in Zarrūq’s home town of Fes, and the repercussions of Portuguese attacks on the coastal towns. Kugle brings this context into the story, but also draws a parallel to today’s troubled times, by discussing how contemporary American Muslim leaders see Zarrūq as a model for a non-radical form of Islam. This is both an “internal” biography presenting Zarrūq’s main conceptions of Sufi ideas, and an “external” one of how he reacted to the political upheavals of his period. As for the latter, Zarrūq seems to have had a knack for taking unpopular, or at least politically inconvenient, positions. When the people of Fes rose up against the faltering Marīnid rule, Zarrūq chose to side with the falling Marīnids, against his erstwhile mentor, the Qādirī leader Zaytūnī. Zarrūq was forced to flee, and he spent a number of years in Egypt where he found a new mentor. Then, having established himself as a Sufi teacher, he returned to Fes. Before he had even entered the city, however, he launched an attack on its scholarly leadership and thus again was forced to flee. Finally, he settled in Misurata in Tripolitania (today’s ), where he died and where his tomb is still a site of reverence. Kugle has made this study into a lively and engaging story, helped in particular by the existence of something rare for the period, an autobiography of Zarrūq’s early years in which he goes into the details of his travels and travails. In addition, Kugle has made use of hagiographical, as well as critical comments by a number of Zarrūq’s contemporaries. Clearly, all these texts were written to create a myth, but they still give fascinating glimpses of contemporary perceptions of current events and help fill in the terse summaries often found in the larger historical accounts of the period. Kugle’s book is influenced by his sources and focuses mainly on Zarrūq’s years in Fes. While his teachers in Cairo are also described, we learn nothing of his later years in Tripolitania, possibly because the passion of conflict was less prominent there, or because this period has already been covered in earlier scholarship. Nonetheless, Kugle’s biographical account ends abruptly. He does place particular emphasis on the intel­ lectual scene in Fes, including information about Zarrūq’s teachers and their teachers, with the result that we are given a vivid impression of aspects of this scholarly center in the 11th/15th century. Kugle’s main thesis is that Zarrūq represented and propagated a trend within that he called “juridical sainthood,” a term which means that mere compliance with the Sharīʿa is not enough: you cannot become a Sufi saint if you do not have juridical training. This call to reform is one of the reasons Zarrūq is referred to as a “rebel” in

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 DOI: 10.1163/156851909X451484 Book Reviews / Islamic Law and Society 16 (2009) 231-238 235 the title of the book, despite the fact that he opposed the various rebellions that took place during his lifetime. The term used for “juridical Sufism” in Zarrūq’s writings is taṣawwuf al-uṣūlīyīn. Kugle uses the phrase “juridical training” to signify the knowledge of the uṣūlīs, but he does not explain whether uṣūl al-fiqh or uṣūl al-dīn is meant, or indeed whether there is a significant difference. It is clear that Zarrūq was a faqīh who taught law in the madrasas of Fes, but Kugle does not really focus on Zarruq’s legal career. For example, a commentary on Mukhtaṣar Khalīl is ascribed to Zarrūq, but it is not men­ tioned here (although his commentary on Ibn Abī Zayd’s Risāla is mentioned). The emphasis is thus on Zarrūq’s Sufi teachings, for the good reason that this is where he had a lasting impact. Zarrūq wrote several works, such as Qawāʿid al-taṣaw­ wuf, in which he puts less emphasis on formal structures of ritual than was common in many orders, and more on the spiritual status and sincerity of the seeker after God. Further, like many of his contemporaries, he stressed the importance of the Ḥikam of Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh (d. 709/1309), on which he wrote a number of different commentaries, on occasion leaving a different one in each of the various towns he visited. In Sufism, as in politics, Zarrūq did not shy away from controversy. Through his teachers he had ties both to the dominant Shādhiliyya order, as well as to the Qādiriyya order which was linked to the eastern centers of Islam. The latter was headed by Zaytūnī, who loomed large in Zarrūq’s early life, first as a teacher and later as an opponent, in both politics and Sufism. In this period, however, the most dynamic Sufi group was the Jazūliyya order, with which Zaytūnī’s Qādirīs came to merge, and which had, according to Kugle, more than a twinge of Mahdism attached to it. Zarrūq sternly opposed Mahdism, as he more or less surreptitiously opposed the sharīfs who, having displaced the Marīnids, now con­trolled Fes politically and were linked with the Jazūlī- Qādirī alliance. For Zarrūq, sainthood (i.e. Sufi authority) could not be ascribed to genealogical descent, but was the result of scholarly (i.e. “juridical”) and spiritual achievements. This division became even clearer when some Jazūlīs started a mahdist movement that went on a “rampage” in the region. According to Zarrūq, this aberra­ tion was the result of Jazūlī’s and the local Qādirīs’ social activism and use of saintly authority for political ends. To counter the criticism of the Jazūlīs that the scholarly establishment of Fes (including Zarrūq’s teachers) had supported the late Marīnid rulers, Zarrūq insisted that Sufi authority must not be used for partisan purposes. Subsequently, these divisions seem to have weakened. Zarrūq did not set up a separate ṭarīqa for himself and, after his death, his followers approached his opponents, the Jazūlīs, even circulating an initiation of Zarrūq into the Jazūliyya order. Under the name of Zarrūqiyya Majdhūbiyya, they merged Zarrūq’s legacy with that of Jazūlī. This later developed into al-Zāwiya al-Fāsiyya, with no trace of Zarrūq’s criticism of social activism. Kugle has written a very readable study of a Sufi figure who is perhaps less well known than others because he did not leave any great brotherhood behind him, but whose importance is still acknowledged in North Africa. Kugle’s audience is clearly contemporary Americans who seek models of “Islam” that may serve as alternatives to the ones currently depicted in the media. Thus references to current figures and events