The Public Sphere during the Later Abbasid Caliphate (1000- 1258 CE): The Role of Sufism Atta Muhammad Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of Languages, Cultures, and Societies February 2020 2 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his/her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of Atta Muhammad to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. © 2019 The University of Leeds and Atta Muhammad 3 Acknowledgements I am thankful to Allah the Merciful for His Blessings, which helped me to complete this thesis. My heartfelt thanks go to my respected supervisor Dr. Fozia Bora for her persistent guidance and invaluable feedback. She has been a guiding star in every step of my research journey. Without her kind guidance and extra support and care, I would not have completed my research. My learning from her was not confined to her comments on my work but drew much inspiration from her many points of general wisdom. I am thankful to Dr. Hendrik Kraetzschmar, for his useful comments on my chapter which I presented for my transfer viva. I am also thankful to Dr. Mustapha Sheikh and Dr. Tajul Islam as they encouraged me at every step, and I had useful discussions with them. Conversations with friends, particularly Dr. Zafar Hussain and Younas Ahmad, have been important for enriching and stimulating my thinking on the matters discussed in this thesis. I am greatly thankful to my friend Mohammad H. Abed for his encouragement and support at various occasions. I greatly acknowledge the kind support of Karen F Priestley, Doctoral College Officer, for the help she provided me whenever I visited her office. I thank the Punjab Higher Education Commission, Pakistan for granting me the scholarship that funded this research. I also thank the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of Leeds, for offering me funds to present papers relevant to my research in various international conferences and workshops. The audiences’ questions and comments at these colloquia have greatly helped me to refine my main arguments. I am very grateful to Dr. Tanvir Anjum, Department of History, QAU Islamabad for her guidance and encouragement. During my studies at QAU, she inculcated within me enthusiasm and passion for learning, and for the pursuit of Islamic history. She has been an inspiration for me throughout my PhD research here at the University of Leeds. I am 4 greatly indebted to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, whose writings encouraged me and have continuously pushed me to pursue learning ever since I became familiar with his works. I am especially grateful to Dr. Irfan Waheed Usmani for his encouragement and kind guidance regarding the pursuit of higher studies. I am also thankful to Nayyar Ijaz Beg for his general wisdom and guiding me to the path of pursuing a foreign PhD. Thanks are due to Seyyed Munawar Abbass Bukhari for his encouragement and support. I am particularly greatful to respected Mukhtar Hussain and his family in leeds for their huge care, hospitality and prayers. I am also thankful to Mohammed Aijaz for his hospitality and wonderful company during my stay at leeds. My deep thanks go to my family for their support and prayers, in particular my wife. I am grateful to my brother and cousins for their financial support for the last couple of months. I particularly thank my niece Shahrbanu for inspiration. Lastly, I dedicate this thesis to my respected bhaus (first cousins), and late mother who aspired for my education. Without the care, love and support of bhaus through my early education, I would not have been able to reach the stage of completing my PhD. 5 Abstract This study reconsiders and overturns key Orientalist assumptions about popular agency and despotic rule in medieval Islamic society. These assumptions encompass the notions that no relationship existed between the lower rungs of society and the ruling elite except through the hegemonic pattern of the absolute and unfettered rule of sulṭāns/caliphs, and that people at large enjoyed little to no agency in regard to effecting social, political, spiritual and economic change. My study argues against these assumptions by clearing a space for better understanding of where the social, economic and political agency of ordinary people lay. I argue that medieval Islamic societies did not merely have a single authoritarian sphere of social activity in which only the elite had agency; rather, there were multiple public spheres where people recruited from a range of private spheres expressed differing modes of social agency. This study reveals that there was a vibrant public sphere in medieval Islamic societies, and particularly in later Abbasid Baghdad, in which Ṣūfīs played a significant role. The establishment of Ṣūfī lodges in Baghdad created a much broader public space where the community of believers would be involved in public sphere activities of various kinds, through which they could contribute to the public good. The plethora of evidence that I have gathered and analysed in this study reveals that Ṣūfīs as social actors used their agency to influence state policies for the betterment of common people. Through their autonomous activities, by instructing the authorities or collaborating with the ruling authorities, Ṣūfīs regularly and successfully intervened in the public domains for the welfare of the community, sometimes to quite radical effect. A number of Ṣūfīs also tried to build bridges between ruling elites and commoners, to develop and sustain an environment where social actors and community members from various walks of life could contribute to and shape the common values of society. 6 My investigation breaks new ground in documenting the fact that later Abbasid Baghdad functioned well as a social sphere in terms of social cohesion and a growth in prosperity, not because governments fulfilled their responsibilities impeccably but rather because ordinary people took on some of these responsibilities. I demonstrate clearly a shift in emphasis from the state to society, where whole social strata would contribute to the constitution of public spheres. The involvement of rulers as patrons and facilitators of these public spaces reveals that medieval rulers were not by any means necessarily ‘despotic’. 7 Table of contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... 3 Abstract ............................................................................................................................. 5 Table of contents ............................................................................................................... 7 Transliteration and dates ................................................................................................. 11 Glossary .......................................................................................................................... 12 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 15 The public sphere ........................................................................................................ 15 S̲ h̲ arīʿa, the objectives of s̲ h̲ arīʿa, and maṣlaḥa (common interest) .......................... 20 Taṣawwuf (Sufism) ...................................................................................................... 22 The role of ʿulamāʾ, Ṣūfīs and the waqf in the public sphere ...................................... 26 Other religious communities and their public spheres............................................. 28 Problematising assumptions regarding public spheres in Medieval Islamic societies, and the role of Sufism ................................................................................................. 29 Orientalists, the public sphere and Sufism............................................................... 30 Sufism in the public sphere during the later Abbasid period ................................... 33 Baghdadi Ṣūfīs in the public sphere ......................................................................... 37 Key research questions ................................................................................................ 38 Scope, aims and limits of this thesis ............................................................................ 39 Review of literature ..................................................................................................... 41 Sufism ...................................................................................................................... 41 The Abbasid caliphate ............................................................................................. 50 Works on the public sphere ..................................................................................... 52 Conception of the public sphere and the postmodern critique .................................... 59 The concept and theory of the public sphere ............................................................... 59 The relationship between truth and power .................................................................