Sufi Sainthood and Bodily Control

On By JonathanIn Arabic, Culture, East & West, History, Islam3 Comments

The stories translated below are taken from a 14th century hagiographic compilation by Abd Allāh ibn Asʻad al-Yāfiʻī (1298-1367), a Sufi ascetic and scholar originally from Yemen.[1] The compilation concerns ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī (1077-1166), the patron and eponym of the Sufi ‘order,’ the Qadiriyya, to which al-Yāfiʻī belonged. ‘Abd al-Qādir was, so far as can be made out, a Hanbalī preacher, jurist, and ascetic Sufi, although it is very unlikely he had any role in the founding of the Sufi ṭariqa that took his name.[2] The handful of extant writings that are definitely his consist of an adab-book of proper religious practice, with some Sufi-tinged material, and two collections of sermons and discourses, many of which have a Sufic character reminiscent of, say, Abū Ṭalib al-Makkī’s Qūt al-Qulūb. As I plan on translating and posting some excerpts from these sermons and discourses, I will make no further comments here. Suffice to say, while his authentic writings have definite Sufic concerns and (some) technical vocabulary, they do not immediately stand out as exceptionally ‘mystical’ or even exclusively Sufi; many of the sermons could have been delivered by any pious, ascetically-inclined Hanbali preacher.[3] There is little immediately apparent in these extant writings or in the earliest biographical notices of ‘Abd al-Qādir to prefigure the later—by a hundred years or so after his death—exaltation of the ascetic preacher to the heights of Sufi sainthood, as evidenced in the excerpts below.

The writings of al-Yāfi’ī and others—he is drawing upon previous writers, such as al-Shattanufī (d. 1314)—then present, not so much the life and milieu of ‘Abd al-Qādir himself, as ideas and conceptions of sainthood relevant in the 13th and 14th centuries among the Qadiriyya and other Sufi ‘orders.’ Besides presenting the ṭariqa’s eponym as a saint of saints and hence worthy of emulation, veneration, and supplication, these sorts of accounts answer many potential questions about the nature of sainthood. What is a saint, or what ought a saint to be? How does the body of the saint ‘operate,’ and how does it differ from others? How does a saint manifest his internal, ‘mystical’ state of being-with-God into the outside, external world of bodies and society? Hagiographical works such as this one work to answer these sorts of questions; whatever the historical validity or historical ‘germ’ that may or may not lie behind such accounts, they relate the ways in which their writers, relators, and readers perceived the spiritual and physical worlds.[4]

A couple of things stand out in the stories I have selected here. Linking all of them together is the theme of the interaction of the spiritual state with the physical body. Sometimes this interaction can be ecstatic and even uncontrollable, as in the story of ‘Abd al-Qādir’s involuntary apparating, as it were. But more prominent in these selections is the theme of bodily integrity and autonomy on the part of the saint. Such a concern explains the rather curious juxtaposition of control of bodily functions and the rejection of bodily obeisance towards holders of temporal power. In both cases, the saint is in charge of his bodily autonomy; he regulates it as he wills, being subject to neither internal forces of nature, nor external forces of temporal power. Nor, as we see in the slightly unnerving story of the shape-shifting jinn, can uncanny forces disturb the saint’s body, or his interior, spiritual state (which, as we see throughout, is intimately linked to his exterior person). Saintliness means, in the world of these accounts, a remarkable degree of personal control and indeed autonomy on the part of the saint, translated into the outer world through his body and his control of it and the space it inhabits (including the bodies and even thoughts of others in the saint’s vicinity). Even terrifying viper-jinn cannot violate the physico-spiritual stability and control of the saint.

123rd Account: According to the Sharīf Abū ‘Abdallah Muḥammad ibn al-Khiḍr ibn ‘Abdallah al-Ḥusanī al-Mawṣilī: My father related to me: he said: I accompanied our master Shaykh Muḥya al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Qādir for thirteen years, and I never saw him during that time wipe his nose nor spit, nor did a fly ever alight on him. And he never stood up for important people, nor for any one possessing goods or temporal power, nor did he sit upon the rugs of kings. And whenever the caliph, or vizier, or any other respectable person came to him, if he was sitting, then he would rise and enter into his house, lest he stand up for them. But when he left his house, they stood up for him, and he spoke good words with them, and he went to great lengths in exhorting them, and they accepted it, forming a circle before him humbly and meekly.

And if the caliph wrote a letter to him, he [‘Abd al-Qādir] would write back: ‘’Abd al-Qādir commands you with such and such, and his command is legally valid towards you, and obeying him is incumbent upon you, and he is a model for you, and an argument against you.’ And when [the caliph] came to the end of his letter, he would kiss it and say: ‘The shaykh, God be pleased with him, spoke truthfully!’

And ‘Abd al-Qādir used to say: The states (al-aḥwāl) used to, in my beginning, overcome me, conveying me. So I resisted them and mastered them, so that I vanish from them and from my essence (wujūdī), and I cross over bounds and become unaware. And when that passes from me, I find myself in a place far distant from where I was. One time the state (al-ḥāl) overcame me in the streets of Baghdad, and an hour went by and I was unaware—then it passed from me and I was in Shushtar, and between it and Baghdad is a twelve-day journey. I remained meditating on my affair.[5]

126th Account: According to Shaykh Abū Bakr ‘Abd al-Rizāq, who said: I heard my father, Muḥya al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Qādir, say: One night I was in the mosque of al-Mansur Usli, and heard the sound of something moving along the floor—then there came an enormous viper, and it opened its mouth in the place of my prostration [i.e. in the place the head touches the ground] and when I desired to make a prostration I repelled it with my hand and completed my prostration. When I sat down for the shahada, it crawled over my thigh, rose to my neck, and coiled itself around it. Upon concluding my prayers, I no longer saw it. The next day, when I entered the street facing the mosque, I saw a person whose eyes were cloven longways, and I knew that he was my jinn. Then he said to me: ‘I am the viper you saw yesterday. I have tried many of the saints in the same way I tried you, and none of them stayed firm the way you stayed firm. There were among them those who were disturbed exteriorly and interiorly [that is, physically and spiritually], and those who were disturbed interiorly while they remained firm exteriorly—but I perceived that you were not disturbed exteriorly or interiorly!’ Then he asked that he might be induced to repent by my hand, so I induced him to repent.

132nd Account: According to Shaykh Abū Ḥafṣ ‘Umar ibn Ḥassan ibn Khalīl al-Ṭaybī, who said: I was present at the session (majlis) of ‘Abd al-Qādir, God be pleased with him, and I was sitting alongside him, when I saw something in the form of a crystal lamp descending from heaven so that it drew close to the mouth of the shaykh, then it went back, ascending rapidly. This happened three times. I couldn’t restrain myself from rising to tell others do the excess of my wonder, but he cried out to me: ‘Sit down! These sessions are held in trust.’ So I sat and did not talk about it until after his death.

And according to Yaḥya ibn al-Ḥājj al-Adīb, who said: I said to myself, I want to count how many times the shaykh Muḥya al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Qādir relates poetry in the session of his preaching. So I attended a session and had with me a string, and whenever he related poetry I tied a knot in the string, concealed under my clothing, and I was at the back of the crowd. So he said [perceiving it], ‘I loosen and you tie!’

ʻAbd Allāh ibn Asʻad al-Yāfiʻī, Khalāsa al-Mafākhir Fī Manāqib al-Shaykh ʻAbd al-Qādir, ed. by Aḥmad Farīd al-Mazīdī (Sirīlānkā: Dār al-Āthār al-Islāmīyah lil-Ṭibāʻah wa-al-Nashr, 2006), 199, 201, 205.

[1] On Yāfiʻī  see: Geoffroy, E.. ” al-Yāfiʿī.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Brill Online , 2012.

[2] On ‘Abd al-Qādir, see, besides his EI2 article and the article on the Qadiriyya, Bruce Lawrence’s article for the Encyclopedia Iranica, available here: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abd-al-qader-jilani; and Jacqueline Chabbi, ‘‘Abd al-Kadir al-Djilani personage historique: Quelques Elements de Biographie’, in Studia Islamica, No. 38 (1973). There are multiple works dealing with the various permutations of the Qadiriyya; among resources available on-line, see Martin van Bruinessen, “Shaykh `Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani and the Qadiriyya in Indonesia”, Journal of the History of Sufism, vol. 1-2 (2000), 361-395, available here: http://www.hum.uu.nl/medewerkers/m.vanbruinessen/publications/Qadiriyya_Indonesia.htm. His article includes a discussion of, among other things, Indonesian comic books depicting stories of ‘Abd al-Qādir.

[3] There are a number of works attributed to ‘Abd al-Qādir that are most certainly not his, including an interesting, but clearly much later, treatise called Sirr al-Asrar, that would seem to date from the 13th or 14th century; the peoms and litanies attributed to him are also probably considerably later in origin.

[4] For a recent treatment of the uses of Sufi hagiography, and concepts and uses of the body, in the context of late medieval Persianate Sufism, see Shazad Bashir, Sufi Bodies: Religion and Society in Medieval Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).

[5] My translation of this passage is rather tentative. To be honest, I am not entirely sure what to make of parts of it—it does seem clear, however, that there is something about the saint’s mystical ‘states’ that cause extranormal bodily experiences.

Domination and Concentration

On By JonathanIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

In a society in which nearly everybody is dominated by somebody else’s mind or by a disembodied mind, it becomes increasingly difficult to learn the truth about the activities of governments and corporations, about the quality or value of products, or about the health of one’s own place and economy.

In such a society, also, our private economies will depend less and less upon the private ownership of real, usable property, and more and more upon property that is institutional and abstract, beyond individual control, such as money, insurance policies, certificates of deposit, stocks, and shares. And as our private economies become more abstract, the mutual, free helps and pleasures of family and community life will be supplanted by a kind of displaced or placeless citizenship and by commerce with impersonal and self-interested suppliers…

Thus, although we are not slaves in name, and cannot be carried to market and sold as somebody else’s legal chattels, we are free only within narrow limits. For all our talk about liberation and personal autonomy, there are few choices that we are free to make. What would be the point, for example, if a majority of our people decided to be self-employed?

The great enemy of freedom is the alignment of political power with wealth. This alignment destroys the commonwealth – that is, the natural wealth of localities and the local economies of household, neighborhood, and community – and so destroys democracy, of which the commonwealth is the foundation and practical means.

Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace

Judgeship in ‘Umayyad Spain

On By JonathanIn Arabic, Culture, East & West, History, IslamLeave a comment

The following are two short anecdotes about a judge in Cordoba, Spain during the rule of the ‘Umayyad amir Abdallah ibn Muhammad (r. 888-912). Both stories come from the Quḍāt Qurṭubah of Khushani, a member of the ‘ulama in tenth century Spain; the Quḍāt Qurṭubah is a history of the judges (quḍāt) of that city. In the first story, the traits of a good judge are exemplified: a quiet, humble sort of ascetic piety, in this manifested by the judge’s doing labor that would not be expected of someone of his apparently high social state. The reader can draw further conclusions about this story’s significance, and the significance of its memory by later generations of Cordobans. As for the second story, it illustrates a couple of tensions often present in early Islamic societies: one, the interplay between the judge- who may or not be a learned member of the ‘ulama– and the scholars and jurists of the community. Second, it reveals the tension between “commanding the good and forbidding the wrong,” and the principle of respecting privacy (as we would put it- though the concept in the shari’a is more complex), a central tenet of medieval Islamic jurisprudence and ethics.

Khalid ibn Sa’id said: Muhammad ibn Hashim al-Zahid related to me, saying: A sound woman from the people of the veiling related to me that one day she went to the house [of Muhammad ibn Salma], before noon, and knocked on his door. He came out to her—she did not know him before that—and on his hands were the traces of bread dough, as if he had been kneading dough. So she said to him: ‘I want to talk with the judge, as I need him for something.’ So he said to her: ‘Go on to the congregational mosque, and he’ll meet you in an hour.’

She said: ‘So I went to the congregational mosque, made my prostrations, then sat down, looking for the judge. It was not long before that man who had come out to me with dough on his hands came, and began his prostrations. So I asked about him, and someone said to me: “He’s the judge!” So when he had finished his prostrations, I came before him and talked to him about my need, and he ruled on it for me.

Ahmad ibn ‘Ubada said: one day I was walking with Muhammad ibn Salma, when he was judge. We met someone carrying a sack on his head, in which something was obscured, and in his hand was a drum. The judge ordered him to break the drum, and he knew without a doubt that the sack was full of drums, so he said: ‘Put down the sack and show what is in it!’

So Ahmad ibn ‘Ubada said: I said to him: it is not incumbent upon you to force the disclosure of the goods of the people and their hidden things—rather, it is your duty to change that which is already manifest.’ So he [the judge] desisted from his command to disclose the contents of the sack. Then we went on, and ran into Muhammad ibn ‘Umar ibn Laba, and [the judge] asked him about the incident, and ibn Laba replied with words similar to mine.

Then the judge inclined towards me and said: We have benefited from your companionship today, my shepherd!’

Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥārith Khushanī, Quḍāt Qurṭubah, (Maktabah al-Andalusīyah 4. al-Qāhirah: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmīyah, 1982), 197.

From Religiones to Religion

On By JonathanIn Culture, Gospel, History, OrthodoxyLeave a comment

From Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom, 2nd Edition (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing), 2003, 70-71:

What was surprising to contemporaries about the Christian Church [around the year 300 AD] was the extent to which activities, which had tended to be kept separate under the old system of religio, were fused into one. Morality, philosophy, and ritual were treated as intimately connected. All were part of “religion” in the wide sense of the term to which we have become accustomed. All were based on the Law of God. They were to be found in their true form only in the Church. In the Christian churches, philosophy was dependent upon revelation and morality was absorbed into religio. Furthermoer, commitment to truth and moral improvement were held to be binding to all believers, irrespective of their class and level of culture. Hence the remarkable combination of stern moralizing and urgent theological speculation which absorbed the energy of serious Christians, from a wide variety of social backgrounds, in the third century as in all later ages.

In much the same manner, the circulation of wealth was harnessed to a carefully thought out system which linked sin with reparation through almsgiving. All classes within the Church were involved in a dogged mobilization of wealth to build up a single religious community. This wealth was distributed along the margins of the Church in such a way as to suggest that the Christian community had the will and the financial “muscle” to take care of the lowest reaches of Roman society.

Thus, when a continuous spate of laws and personal letters in favor of Christians issued from the palace of Constantine in the decades after A.D. 312, they were received and exploited to the full by a religious group which knew how to the make the best of its good fortune. If, in the words of the English proverb, “God helps those who help themselves,” the Christian Church, as it had developed in the course of the third century, more than deserved the apparent “miracle” of Constantine’s conversion at the battle of Milvian Bridge.

Friday Roundup

On By JonathanIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

The Policeman’s New Clothes: ‘In October 2010 a new Industrial Police Force (IPF) became operational in Bangladesh. After years of refusal, reluctant to provide the extra funding, the government finally agreed to demands of the garment manufacturers and established a permanent paramilitary force to deal with workers unrest in the industrial zones. The widespread strikes and riots of the previous years, ongoing since the mass revolt of 2006, had also prompted the state’s initiative.’

The Revolt of the Salaried Bourgeoisie: Slavoj Zizek is a loose cannon, to be sure. However, his analysis here of the current shape of capitalism and class is pretty well spot on, I think.

War on Iran: It’s not a Matter of ‘If’: ‘As with sanctions and covert military onslaughts on Iraq in the run up to 2003, the first point to underline is that the US is waging war on Iran. But well aware of the US public’s aversion to yet another war in the Middle East, the onslaught is an undeclared one.’

Is Distributism a Form of Capitalism?: ‘In other words, while Distributism and Capitalism adhere to a basic principle of private ownership of productive capital, there is a vast chasm of difference which makes even the term “distributist capitalism” misleading.’

Creating American Terrorists: ‘Defenders of the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act, which declares the entire world to be a “battlefield” against terrorism and authorizes the U.S. military to detain indefinitely anyone suspected of being a terrorism supporter, have claimed that the White House will only use its new power carefully and with due process. Opponents note that the White House has never hesitated to use any new authority, no matter how outrageous, and that the trend of law enforcement and security agencies is to expand on powers granted, not to rein them in or limit them.’

War, Travel, Commentary, Alchemy: An Ottoman Life

On By JonathanIn Arabic, Culture, East & West, History, Islam, WarLeave a comment

The following life is a marked departure from the two previous biographies from Ṭāshkubrīʹzādah’s Shaqa’iq that I’ve translated and posted here and here. Whereas the previous two figures are depicted as mystics and having an ambiguous, even conflicted relationship with both wider society and the Ottoman state structure, the subject of today’s biography does not seem to have had such problems, working in close company with first a Mamluk Sultan and then the Ottoman Sultan. His relationship with the Ottoman state, interestingly, is also different: rather than “official” posts such as judge, teacher, or mufti, Muhammad ibn ‘Amr ibn Hamza is what we might call a “popular preacher,” or at least that is the way he is depicted here. The “people” (ahl) love him, we are told; yet it isn’t just the people who love him; the holders of the highest political power in the lands he sojourns in also love him, and he seems to return the favor.

Ibn Hamza’s life trajectory is somewhat unusual: while being from a Transoxanian family is not particularly unusual, his birthplace of Antioch does stand out. While a major city of late antiquity and the middle ages, by the Ottoman period Antioch had declined greatly due to invasion and, more importantly, the silting up of the Orontes, which crippled Antioch’s port capacity and hence value as a trade entrepot. Leaving Antioch, ibn Hamza’s career would come to move in tandem with some of the central trends of his era: increasing Ottoman power and vastly widened territory, conflict between the Sunni Ottoman state and the Shi’i Safavid state, conflict that was itself part of a wider trend of state-formation across Eurasia, often in an atmosphere of inter-confessional conflict.

This inter-confessional conflict makes up the central element of ibn Hamza’s life: participating in and indeed encouraging the war against the “heretical” Shi’i Safavids, here refered to as the Qizilbāsh (literally, the “red-heads,” after their red turbans) in reference to the religio-military group that had facilitated the Safavid rise to power. Ibn Hamza’s fight against Shi’ism takes multiple forms, most virulently as a preacher in the service of Sultan Selīm; we may wonder to what extent this anti-Shi’i stance preceded ibn Hamza’s association with the Ottoman state, and to what extent it was simply precipitated by a commitment to Sunni orthodoxy. At any rate, anti-Shi’i activity would be central to Ottoman efforts within and without the empire, a situation somewhat analogous to the Cold War of the twentieth-century between the United States and the Soviet Union. People suspected of Shi’i leanings constituted, in the eyes of the Ottoman authorities, a central threat to the Ottoman state; Sufi groups could fall under suspicion, as we see in ibn Hamza’s life (although also note that Sufism per se is not condemned, at least not in Ṭāshkubrīʹzādah’s rendering, only a particular practice of some Sufis). But it should be noted that preaching holy war against heretics was not the only concern in ibn Hamza’s life—he also seems to have been deeply concerned with the wider social and religious welfare of Ottoman society, or at least this is the impression Ṭāshkubrīʹzādah wants to give us. In addition, while not exactly a conventional scholar, he did engage in book writing and other scholarly pursuits, alongside his preaching of holy war, acting as the companion of sultans, building mosques, preaching often, mastering alchemy, raising a massive family, and apparently engaging in commerce. It is perhaps not coincidental that the appellative that comes to mind is “Renaissance man,” but a discussion of the truth that lies behind such a thought is best saved for another time.

Finally, a note on the new format I have used here: having recently discovered how simple inserting endnotes into a WordPress post is, I have therefore included explanatory notes throughout the text, which I hope will make some of the technical language and historical references clearer.

Among them is the Knowledgeable, the Noble, the Virtuous Mulla Muhyi al-Din Muhammad ibn ‘Amr ibn Hamza:

His grandfather was from Transoxiana [1] and was among the disciples of Sa’ad al-Din al-Tuftazani. He then traveled and settled in Antioch, where this Muhammad was born. He memorized the Qur’an at an early age, then al-Kanz and al-Shatabi and others, then studied fiqh [2] under his paternal uncle Shaykh Hussayn and Shaykh Ahmad, virtuous men, studying under them the principles of jurisprudence (al-usul), Qur’an, and the Arabic language. He then journeyed to Hasn Kifa and Amada, then to Tabriz, learning from its ‘ulama, busying himself there for two years, studying in Tabriz under the learned, the virtuous Mulla Muzid. He then returned to Antioch and Aleppo and remained there for a time, preaching, teaching, and issuing fatwas, his virtues becoming well known. Then he went to Jerusalem and lived nearby, then to Mekka and performed the hajj, then to Egypt. There, he heard hadith from al-Siyuti and al-Shamani, both giving him ijāzas. [3] He preached, taught, and gave fatwas, having great reception for a time, until Sultan Qāʾitbāy [4] sought him out and he appeared before him, preached to him, and wrote a book for him on fiqh titled The Conclusion, so he loved him and honoured him with great honour and rewarded him well. [The Sultan] would not give him permission to travel, so [ibn Hamza] remained in [the Sultan’s] presence until King [sic] Qāʾitbāy passed away in the year 903 [1497].[5]

Then [ibn Hamza] traveled to Anatolia (al-Rum) by way of the sea, and then made his way to Bursa, whose people loved him greatly, so he stayed there and busied himself with preaching and forbidding the wrong.[6] Then he went to the city of Constantinople and its people loved him also, and Sultan Bāyazīd [7] heard his sermon and bestowed upon him all of his wealth, and he used to send rewards to him all the time. [Ibn Hamza] wrote for him a book titled Explication of the Excellent Qualities in the Life of Our Prophet (peace and prayers of God—exalted is He—be upon him), and another book on Sufism, and was present before him, exhorting him. Then the Sultan went out on the holy frontier campaign,[8] and [ibn Hamza] was with him. Together they conquered the fortress of Methoni, and this was their second or third entrance therein.[9] Then he returned to Constantinople and remained there, commanding the right and forbidding the wrong, for he did not fear the reproach of God, and he opposed the heretics and the Sufi practice of dancing. He next returned with his family to Aleppo the Protected, and Melik al-Amra’ Khayrbek honoured him greatly and studied under him, being responsible for all of his needs, so that [ibn Hamza] did not require anything else. So [ibn Hamza] stayed there eight years, occupied with tafsir, hadith, and refuting heretics and the Rāfiḍa bearing the name of the tyrant Ardabik.[10] This sect hated him, cursing him in their assembly while cursing the Companions of the Prophet.

[Ibn Hamza] then returned to Anatolia during the reign of Sultan Selīm Khan,[11] urging him on to holy war (jihād) against the Qizilbāsh,[12] writing a book for him on the conditions and virtues of holy frontier campaigns (it is a very fine book); [ibn Hamza] then went with him to the war against this sect, preaching to the army every day during the campaign, reminding them of the rewards of holy war, especially against this sect. The Sultan honoured him and was very generous towards him. When the two armies met, fierce fighting broke out, and as eyes were averted and hearts rose into throats, the Sultan commanded [ibn Hamza] to proclaim the call (al-dawa’a). So he occupied himself with proclaiming the call, and the Sultan cried, “Amen!” So the enemy was put to flight through the help of God—exalted is He—and he journeyed to Rumelia, preaching to its people, forbidding them disobedience [towards God] and commanding them to do the obligatory deeds. So many among them were [morally] improved because of him, and he built two Friday mosques in the town of Saray [Sarajevo], as well as a neighborhood mosque there and another neighborhood mosque in Uskub [Skopje], and remained there approximately twenty years, doing Qur’an interpretation every day, converting many unbelievers. In the year 932 [1525] he went on campaign with our magnificent Sultan [13] to Ankeros, and he called to him at the time of the fighting, and the glorious conquest came as before.[14] Then [ibn Hamza] went to Bursa and dwelled there and began to build a large mosque, but passed away before its completion, on Muharram 4, 938 [August 18, 1531]; he was close to seventy years old, and was buried in the precincts of the mosque.

He beget from his loins nearly a hundred souls; he had many books and treatises on numerous arts, especially on the science of alchemy (al-kīmiyāʾ), being among those who persevere in it. He traveled to many places, was beloved by many, many souls being attracted to him. He was greatly pious, and had perfect watchfulness in his manner of eating, dress, and ritual purity. His cost of living was covered by his commercial activity, while much of his time was expended in the betterment of people through preaching, teaching, and fatwa-giving. There are few hadith mentioned in books which he did not have committed to memory; he was perfect in his Qur’an commentary (tafsir), without recourse to study or books. He used to devote himself on Fridays to commentary (tafsir) on what the preacher had recited during prayers, with perfectly elegant style, variety of aspects, and abundant knowledge, which daily amazed those who thought on it. The common people and the elite among the ‘ulama and the Sufis learned from him: he was knowledgeable, lordly, always summoning to right-guidance and good conduct; putting to death many bad innovation and bringing to life many good traditions (sunnan). People beyond the count of any but God benefited through him; such would not be possible to anyone else unless there came the like of what was sent from the grace of God [through him]—may God breathe upon his face and enlighten his grave!

Aḥmad ibn Muṣṭafá  Ṭāshkubrīʹzādah, Al-Shaqāʼiq Al-Nuʻmānīyah Fī ʻulāmāʼ Al-Dawlah Al-ʻUthmānīyah (Bayrūt, Lubnān: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʻArabī, 1975), 247-249.

[1] Lit., “what lies beyond the river,” roughly modern-day Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, part of Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.

[2] Islamic jurisprudence.

[3] “License,” certification that one is qualified to transmit hadith (or a book or other text) from a given person via an authorized chain of transmitters.

[4] Important late Mamluk ruler, carried out extensive military campaigns and building projects; died a few years before the Ottoman conquest of Egypt. See M Sobernheim, “Ḳāʾit Bāy, al-Malik al-As̲h̲raf Abu ‘l-Naṣr Sayf al-dīn al-Maḥmūdī al-Ẓāhirī” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, edited by: P. Bearman; , Th. Bianquis; , C.E. Bosworth; , E. van Donzel; and W.P. Heinrichs (Leiden: Brill, 2011).

[5] Qāʾitbāy actually died in 901/1496.

[6]The second half of the phrase “commanding the right and forbidding the wrong,” a basic Islamic ethical injunction incumbent upon all believers; the exact dynamics and parameters were, however, widely debated. See Michael Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

[7] Sultan Bāyazīd II, ruled 886-918/1481-1512.

[8] Ghazu, literally a raid, but in this context a campaign on the Ottoman frontier, here given a sacred function (see below), hence my somewhat inelegant translation.

[9] Methoni (also known as Modon) is a heavily fortified town in Morea, Greece; it had been held by the Venetians for nearly three hundred years until its fall, mentioned here, on August 9, 1500. For photos of surviving fortifications and a plan of the town, see: Methoni.

[10] “Rāfiḍa” by this period had become a derogatory term for Shi’i Muslims in general; I have not been able to uncover to whom the name Ardabik refers.

[11] Ruled 918-926/1512-1520.

[12] That is, the Persian Safavids, relatively recently converted to Shi’a Islam.

[13] Sultan Süleymān I, ruled 926-74/1520-66.

[14] This must refer to either Süleymān’s conquest of Belgrade in 1521 or his 1525 Hungary campaign; I suspect the former, though that would mean Ṭāshkubrīʹzādah’s date is wrong.

A Sufi Life

On By JonathanIn Arabic, History, Islam1 Comment

Here is another selection from Aḥmad ibn Muṣṭafá Ṭāshkubrīʹzādah’s collection of biographies of early Ottoman scholars. Here we have a man who is unambiguously a Sufi, though his order (perhaps Halveti?) is not given (for this order specifically, see the recent work by John Curry on the Halveti order in part of Anatolia[1] ). At any rate, a couple of things stand out. One, Ṭāshkubrīʹzādah does not have a great deal of information to go on, other than perhaps the letter (risala-also, a treatise) al-Amasyi wrote. Much of the rest- the ragged clothing, the small livelihood- is pretty standard, though it does reveal what was expected of a Sufi scholar in this period. Most notable though is the saying Ṭāshkubrīʹzādah tentatively attributes to al-Amasyi about his vision of the Preserved Tablet, followed by al-Amasyi’s other dreams, namely, of Muhammad. Dreams and their interpretation were a major component not just of Sufi thought and practice, but across the ranks of the ‘ulama and even beyond. Here, perhaps ironically, it is through dreams and their being written down that one man’s life has come down to us, albeit in a very tiny fragment through which we can only imagine a larger whole.

Among them is the Knowledgeable, the Virtuous, the Noble Mulla Bakhshi Khalifa al-Amasyi, God be merciful to him.

He was born in a village close to Amasya and studied under the ‘ulama of his homeland. He then traveled to the Arab lands and studied under those ‘ulama as well. Then he chose the Sufi path and received from it glorious rank. He was lowly, humble, watchful, shari’a-minded, content with a small livelihood, dressing in raggedy old clothes. He used to teach, many people sitting for his sermons and dhikr-recitation. He was skillful in tafsir, and had many books of tafsir in his memory, with many studying under him and gaining benefit from him. He was also skillful in fiqh, and in all the sciences. And perhaps he said: “I saw on the Preserved Tablet lines written like thus.” His words were never off the mark, and it was as he transmitted. And I saw a letter of his in which he collected all of his visions in his dreams of the Prophet, peace and prayers be upon him, and his conversations with him, and they were very many. He reposed—God be merciful to him—around the year 930 (1523), God illumine his repose and in the highest chamber of the Gardens give him rest.

Aḥmad ibn Muṣṭafá  Ṭāshkubrīʹzādah, Al-Shaqāʼiq Al-Nuʻmānīyah Fī ʻulāmāʼ Al-Dawlah Al-ʻUthmānīyah (Bayrūt, Lubnān: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʻArabī, 1975)
____________

1 John J. Curry The Transformation of Muslim Mystical Thought in the Ottoman Empire: The Rise of the Halveti Order, 1350-1650. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010)

The State and the Shari’a

On By JonathanIn Culture, East & West, History, IslamLeave a comment

If divine guidance is needed, it is for the purpose of setting human life in good order. The purpose is not to control discipline, the two most salient missions of modern law and the modern state that commands it. Rather, in Muslim thinking, it is to live in peace: first, with oneself; second, with and in society; and third, with and in the world. It is to do the right thing, whoever or wherever one is. The state permits and forbids, and when it does the latter, it punishes severely upon infraction. It is not in the least interested in individuals do outside of its spheres of influence and concern. Islamic law, on the other hand, has an all-encompassing interest in human acts. It organizes them into various categories ranging from moral to legal, without however making such distinctions.

Wael B. Hallaq, Sharīʻa: Theory, Practice, Transformations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 84.

The Mundane and the Mystical

On By JonathanIn Arabic, Culture, History, Islam3 Comments

The following is a translated excerpt from a work by an Ottoman scholar writing in the first half of the sixteenth century, Aḥmad ibn Muṣṭafá Ṭāshkubrīʹzādah. Ṭāshkubrīʹzādah wrote a number of works in Arabic and Persian (and perhaps in Ottoman Turkish-not sure on that though), including a tabaqat (biographical dictionary) on early Ottoman ‘ulama (scholars). All of the scholars have some sort of connection to the emergent Ottoman state structure, either as salaried teachers or muftis, judges in shari’a courts, or as waqf administrators. Many of the members of the ‘ulama Ṭāshkubrīʹzādah considers, however, were Sufis or otherwise mystically inclined, such as the scholar treated in the biography below. In fact, there is no sharp division between “mysticism” and the more “exoteric” religious sciences and practices. Indeed, as this example also shows, these scholars could reconcile, at least notionally, both exoteric, even secular demands, and more mystical impulses and desires.

There is a lot going on in this entry (which is richer in personal details than the majority of Ṭāshkubrīʹzādah’s entries-here, the richness is due to Ṭāshkubrīʹzādah’s personal connection to the subject), but I will only note one other aspect: the treatment of the central Islamic discipline of Qur’an interpretation. On the one hand, we see a very practical concern: Muhyi al-Din’s creation of a sort of introductory text-book for people new to the discipline (and, in the Ottoman context, people who would be unlikely to have any form of Arabic as their first language). On the other hand, we also see a deeply mystical approach to interpretation, reminiscent of some rather radical forms of Sufi hermeneutic and exegetical practice. Both of these “exoteric” concerns (Baydawi’s commentary is hardly mystical stuff) and a deeply, even controversially, mystical approach to exegesis seem to have coexisted for this scholar. I will leave it to the reader to imagine what all this might mean for how we think about the early Ottoman ‘ulama, and perhaps the ‘ulama as a “class,” particularly in relation to “mystical” groups and ideologies.

And among them is the Knowledgeable, the Doer, the Virtuous, the Noble, Mulla Muhyi al-Din Muhammad ibn al-Shaykh the Knower of God the Exalted Maslah al-Din al-Qujawi:

He read under the ‘ulāma of his land then joined to the service of Mulla al-Fadil ibn Afdal al-Din, then became a teacher in the madrasa of Khawajeh Khayr al-Din in Constantinople, and married the daughter of Shaykh Al-‘Arif bi-Allah al-Shaykh Muhyi al-Din al-Qujawi. Then the call of retreat and seclusion overwhelmed him, so he abandoned teaching, with a salary of fifteen dirhams per day in the way of retirement being appointed to him. And he sought to have it decreased, saying, “Ten dirhams is sufficient for me.” And he remained in his house, busying himself with exalted knowledge and worship. He was modest and humble, satisfactory in way of life, praiseworthy in behavior, and was beloved of the people of soundness. He used to purchase his necessities in the market himself and bear them back to his house himself, with the people wanting to serve him, but he was not satisfied unless he carried it out by his own hand, modest towards God and harsh on the lower self. And he used to transmit tafsīr in his mosque, sons of the land gathered to them, seeking to listen to his words, seeking blessings for themselves; many benefited through him. He wrote a marginal commentary on Baydawi’s tafsīr, containing and uniting in one place the benefits that were variously scattered in the books of tafsīr, with clear, easy interpretations in order to benefit the beginner. He wrote an explanation of al-Waqā’i fi al-Fiqh, an explanation of al-Farā’id al-Sarajia, an explanation of al-Muftāh lil-‘Alāma al-Sakākī, and an explanation of the famous qasida al-Burda. He died in the year 950 (1543).

He said, may God be merciful to him, “If a verse from the verse of the Magnificent Qur’an gives me difficulty, I turn to God—exalted is He—then my heart is widened until the measure of the world and the rising of sun and moon in it- I do not know which of the two is which. Then a light appears so that there is a guide to the Preserved Tablet—then I take from it the meaning of the verse.” He said—may God be merciful to him—“If I act according to firm intention, I do not desire sleep unless I am sleeping in the Garden. And if I act according to permission, this state is not present in me.” And he used to have great love towards this lowly servant [the author]. And he [the author] was part of a group that did not vaunt him and did not choose the appointment of judgeship without direction from him. And he had bid me to it [judgeship], and he related to me that one of his sincere companions had been a judge, had left judgeship for a time, then re-entered judgeship—and he was a sound, truthful man. “So I asked him about the cause of his re-entry, and he replied: ‘I had, through my judgeship, a connection to the Prophet of God, peace and prayers be upon him, and I saw him in a dream once every week. Then I left judgeship in order to increase nearness to him [Muhammad]. But after abandoning judgeship I did not see what I had seen while a judge. Then I saw [in a dream] the Prophet of God, peace and prayers be upon him, and said to him: “O Prophet of God! I abandoned being a judge in order to increase my closeness to you—but it has not transpired as I had hoped.” Then the Prophet of God, peace and prayers be upon him, said: “The relationship between me and between you was stronger during [your] judgeship than when you abandoned it, because you, when you were a judge, were occupied with the well-being (aslāh) of your self and of my community, but when you abandonded judgeship you were only occupied with the well-being of your self. When you increase in well-being (aslāh) you increase in proximity to me.’” The mercifully protected Mulla said: “I speak the truth of his words, and the man was truthful. So I advise you that you choose the judgeship and do good to your self and to others.” These are his words—may his secret (sirruhu) be hallowed.

Aḥmad ibn Muṣṭafá  Ṭāshkubrīʹzādah, Al-Shaqāʼiq Al-Nuʻmānīyah Fī ʻulāmāʼ Al-Dawlah Al-ʻUthmānīyah (Bayrūt, Lubnān: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʻArabī, 1975), 245-6.

Tourist Guides of Jerusalem, Circa 1641

On By JonathanIn Culture, History, Islam, TravelLeave a comment

The guild [of Jerusalem tourist guides] had ten members, one of whom was the head; it was very zealous in guarding their vested interests. They apparently had ample reason to be anxious: in 1641 it was reported to the kadi that unauthorized guides were meeting the pilgrims outside Jerusalem’s walls and showing them around holy sites, their faulty knowledge not withstanding. Moreover, other individuals were selling the visitors figurines made of clay, allegedly taken from the cave situated beneath the Dome of the Rock and representing historical figures—claims that were baseless factually and harmful financially. Thus the kadi instructed “stock ‘Abd al-Qadir,” the head of the guild, to stop anyone who tried to behave in such unauthorized ways, and if necessary, bring them to the court where they would be punished. All guild members were to be equally treated by the head, but each guide was to be left alone to handle his own customers, without interference by others. The head was also to stop any sales of the kind just mentioned, as well as insist that each of the staff of the Temple Mount stay within his allocated area and address the visitors there, while refraining from showing them around other areas. However, if high-ranking individuals wished to vist these places, their tours should not be conducted by ordinary guild members; only handpicked top staff of the Temple Mount (the deputy shaykh al-haram and the deputy nazir) could guide them there. And finally, no one was to be allowed to intercept the pilgrims outside the town gates and monopolize them.

Amnon Cohen, The Guilds of Ottoman Jerusalem (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 79-80.