Bargaining with Baraka: Persian Sufism, "mysticism," and pre-modern politics

Muslim World

Volumn 90, Issue 3-4, 2000, Pages 259-288

  Safi, Omid ^a  

^a Assistant Professor in the University Libraries   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 61049279988     PISSN: 00274909     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-1913.2000.tb03691.x     Document Type: Article

References (91)

1. Muhammad Ibn Munawwar, Asrār al-tawhīd fī maqämāt al-shaykh Abū Sa'īd, ed. Muhammad Ridā Shafī'ī-Kadkanī, two volumes (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Āgāh, 1366/1987; reprint 1376/1997). All translations in this essay, unless otherwise noted, are mine
2. Certain types of finches - dippers, or water ouzels (Cinclus) - are semi-aquatic creatures, and can in fact walk on water surfaces
3. One variant reads zaghanī, implying a "black sparrow" according to Dehkhoda, Lughat-nāma(Reprint; Tehran: Tehran University Press, 1988), 9:12873. Another variant indicates murghī, simply a bird
4. Muhammad Ibn Munawwar, Asrār al-tawhīd, 1:199
5. For a recent and thorough critique of these tendencies, refer to Richard King, Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India, and the 'Mystic East' (London: Routledge, 1999), 7-35
6. King's work builds on themes introduced by Russell McCutcheon, Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis and the Politics of Nostalgia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997)
7. and Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1982)
8. I have discussed some of the problematical issues in scholarly approaches to these two giants of the Sufi tradition in my article "Did the Two Oceans Meet? Historical Connections and Disconnections between Ibn al-'Arabī and Rūmī," Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society, XXVI (1999), 55-88
9. The application of the universal label "mystic" to pre-modern figures from different religious traditions of pre-modern time has been met with well-justified caution and skepticism. For some examples refer to Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century (New York: Crossroad, 1991), xvi: "No mystics (at least before the present century) believed in or practiced 'mysticism.' They believed in and practiced Christianity (or Judaism, or Islam, or Hinduism), that is, religions that contained mystical elements as parts of a wider historical whole."
10. Steven Katz initiated a highly contested debate in a collected volume titled Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), in which he attacked the notion of a "common core" of mystical experience
11. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Longmans Green, 1902; reprint, London: Collier-MacMillan, Ltd., 1961), 316. Interestingly enough, in the very next sentence James proceeds to repeat the common 19th century racial theories ascribing to Persians a "pantheistic," mystical quality, which is to be contrasted with the "hot and rigid monotheism of the Arab mind." Such essentialized characterizations of Persian "mysticism" vs. Arab "rigid monotheism" have much more to do with 19th century European racial theories than they do with the nuances of Sufi thought. In such dichotomies, the Persians would represent the "Indo-European," and the Arab the "Semitic."
12. For a thought-provoking examination of these issues, refer to Grace Jantzen, "Mysticism and Experience," Religious Studies 25 (1988), 295-315
13. For an example of such characterization, refer to Rudolph Otto, The Idea of the Holy (London: Oxford University Press, 1923; Reprint, 1958), 22: "But essentially mysticism is the stressing to a very high degree, indeed the overstressing, of the non-rational or supra-rational elements in religion; and it is only intelligible when so understood." [Emphasis mine.l
14. Michel de Certeau, "Mystic Speech," in Heterologies: Discourses on the Other, translated by Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1986), 80
15. This chapter was first published in 1976 as "L'énonciation mystique," in Recherches de science religieuse, 64, no. 2 (1976), 183-215
16. John E. Smith, "William James's Account of Mysticism: A Critical Appraisal," in Mysticism and Religious Traditions, ed. Steven Katz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983): 247-79
17. Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism, 427, n. 11, points out that as carly as 1909
18. this deficiency was noted by some of James' contemporaries: Friedrich von Hügel wrote a personal letter to James in discussing this matter. The letter was edited by James Luther Adams, and published as "Letter from Friedrich von Hügel to William James," Downside Review 98 (1980): 214-36
19. For a thorough and profound discussion of this perspective, refer to Denys Turner, The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). I am indebted to my colleague James Wetzel of Colgate University for bringing this work to my attention
20. Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1974), 4
21. Margaret Smith, Rābi'a the Mystic and Her Fellow Saints in Islam (London: Cambridge University Press, 1928)
22. Margaret Smith, "The Nature and Meaning of Mysticism," in An Introduction to Mysticism (published in London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1931 as An Introduction to History of Mysticism; Reprint, New York, Oxford University Press, 1977), 3
23. Compare the above quotation with the following from Margaret Smith, "The Meaning and Nature of Mysticism," in The Way of the Mystics: The Early Christian Mystics and the Rise of the Sūfīs(published in London: Sheldon Press, 1931 as Studies in Early Mysticism in the Near and Middle East, Reprint, 1976), 3: "Mysticism, therefore, involves . . . the establishment of a conscious relation with the Absolute, in which the soul shall attain to union with God."
24. Smith, The Way of the Mystics, 3: "The mystic, therefore, claims that is possible to have direct intercourse with God, an immediate apprehension of the Divine, when God is no longer regarded as ohjective to the soul, but becomes a subjective experience." [emphasis mine]
25. Again, the aforementioned Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 4, n. 2, refers to Underbill's Mysticism as still "the best introduction to mysticism." My intention is certainly not to find fault with the legacy of Annemarie Schimmel, to whom all students of Sufism are indebted, but to point out the problematic of relying upon a Protestant-based model for a comparative study of mysticism
26. Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (London: Menthuen, 1911; reprint, New York: Image Books, 1990), 81
27. Interestingly enough, in a chapter titled "The Mystic and the Corporate Life" featured in one of her lesser known works, The Essentials of Mysticism and Other Essays (London: J. M Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1920), 25, Underhill did modify this perspective by adding: "In the true mystic, who is so often and so wrongly called a 'religious individualistic'. . . " Nonetheless, most sources which refer to Underhill utilize her earlier framework, developed in Mysticism
28. J. Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971; reprint, London: Oxford University Press, 1973), 2
29. For an insightful commentary on "Protestant" views on ritual as something mechanical and regimented, see William E. Paden, Religious Worlds (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988), 94
30. Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism, 326-43, also discusses the Liberal Protestant and neo-Kantian background of many 19th-early 20th century scholars of "mysticism" such as Söderblom, Lehmann, and Rudolph Otto
31. Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam, 70
32. Marshall G. S. Hodgson was a true visionary, anticipating many such points a generation before the rest of the academic world. He frequently discussed many of the western ethnocentric notions deployed in intellectual histories. Among other places, he discusses the problematical notion of "progress" and "decline" in his thought provoking chapters "The Great Western Transmutation" and "European World Hegemony" in The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, 3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 3: 176-248 (esp. pages 203-5)
33. Carl Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism: An Essential Introduction to the Philosophy and Pràctice of the Mystical Tradition of Islam (Boston: Shambhala, 1997), 130-31
34. The oppositional presence of Saljūq era Sufis such as 'Ayn al-Qudāt Hamadānī is the subject of the sixth chapter ("Sufi Dissidents") of my dissertation titled Power and the Politics of Knowledge: Negotiating Political Ideology and Religious Orthodoxy in Saljūq Iran (Duke University, Graduate Program in Religion, 2000)
35. Richard Eaton, The Sufis of Bijapur (1300-1700): Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978)
36. Simon Digby, "The Sufi Shaykh and the Sultan: A Conflict of Claims to Authority in Medieval India," Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies28 (1990), 71-81
37. Devin DeWeese, "The Eclipse of the Kubraviyah in Central Asia," Iranian Studies 21 (1988), 45-83
38. Carl Ernst, Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History, and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center(Albany: SUNY, 1992)
39. Jo-Ann Gross, "Authority and Miraculous Behavior: Reflections on Karāmāt Stories of Khwāja 'Ubaydullāh Ahrār," in The legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism, ed. L. Lewisohn (New York: Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, 1992), 159-71
40. Vincent Cornell, Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998)
41. Examples could range from the classic work of E. G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, to the recent piece by Hamid Dabashi, "Historical Conditions of Persian Sufism During the Seljuk Period," in Classical Persian Sufism: From its Origins to Rumi, ed. L. Lewisohn (New York: Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, 1993), 137-74
42. Sadīd al-Dīn Muhammad Ghaznavī, Maqāmāt-i zanda pīl (Ahmad-i Jām), ed. Hishmat Allāh Mu'ayyid Sanandajī (Tehran: Bungāh-i Tarjuma va Nahsr-i Kitāb, 1340/ 1961), 93
43. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, "Other People's Lies," in Other Peoples'Myths (New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1988), 27
44. For an insightful analysis of the uneasy constructions of "hagiography" in a milieu shaped by late 19th and early 20th century, see Felice Lifshitz, "Beyond Positivism and Genre: 'Hagiographical' Texts as Historical Narratives," Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 25 (1994): 95-113
45. For a discussion of the role of myth as a paradigmatic force that shapes religious worlds, refer to William Paden, Religious Worlds, 69-92
46. Thomas J. Heffernan, Sacred Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 19
47. These quatrains are not composed in the standard rubā'ī meter, but in a style known as the hazaj. See Persian Literature: A Bio-bibliographical Survey. Begun by C. A. Storey, continued by Francois de Blois, Volume V, Part 1, Poetry to ca. A.D. 1100 (London: The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1992), 96. Bāhā Tāhir's quatrains follow a different meter than the well-known Rubā'ī yāt of 'Umar Khayyām. Elwell-Sutton has identified this meter as "hazaj mosaddas mahdūf."
48. Jan Rypka, History of Iranian Literature, ed. Karl Jahn (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1968), 234; concludes: "[I]t is difficult to place him chronologically. . . ."
49. Cited by Rashīd Yāsamī in his introduction to Dīvān-i Kāmil-i Bāhā Tāhir-i 'Uryān-i Hamadānī, cd. Wahīd Dastgirdī (Tehran:1932; reprint, Tehran: Kitābfurūshī-yi Adab, 1331/1952), 14
50. L. P. Elwell-Sutton, "Bābā Tāher," Encyclopaedia Iranica, 296-97
51. Edward Heron-Allen, Lament of Bābā Tāhir (London: B. Quaritch, 1902
52. reprint, London: Octagon Press, 1976 as A Fool of God: Tbe Mystical Verse of Baba Tahir)
53. 'Ayn al-Qudāt Hamadānī, Nāma-hā-yi 'Ayn al-Qudāt-i Hamadānī, eds. 'Alī-naqī Munzawi and Afif Osseiran (Tehran: Bunyād-i Farhang-i Irān, 1363/1983), 2:258
54. Nasrollah Pourjavady, 'Ayn al-Qudāt wa ustādān- iū, 102, n. 2, points to this possibility, without offering a definitive answer
55. For example, the Russian scholar Zhukovski alludes to an alleged meeting between Bāhā Tāhir and another Hamadanian resident, the famed philosopher Abū 'Alī Sīnā (d. 1036). This Russian article appeared in Vol. xiii of Zapiski of the Oriental Section of the Imperial Russian Archaeological Society (1901, pp. 104-8)
56. E. G. Browne referred to this article in A literary history of Persia, 2:259, n. 1; 2:261
57. Possibly a corruption of Hamshād. Zabihollah Safa [Dhabīh Allāh Safā], Tārīkh-i adabīyāt dar Irān, 5 vols. (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Dānishgāh-i Tehran, 1335-64/1956-1985), 2:383, n. 2, believes this name to be an abbreviation for Ahmad-Shāh or Ahmad-Shād
58. Rāvandī, Rābat al-sudūr, ed. Muhammad Iqbāl (London: Luzac & Co., 1921), 98-99
59. For E. G. Browne's translation of this narrative, see A Literary History of Persia, 2:260
60. Zabihollah Safa, Tārīkh-i adabīyāt dar Irān, 2:383
61. E. G. Browne, A literary history of Persia, 2:260
62. Storey-de Blois, Persian Literature: A Bio-bibliographical Survey V, Part 1, Poetry to ca. A.D. 1100, 96
63. Dabashi, "Historical Conditions of Persian Sufism during the Seljuk Period," 155
64. For the narratives in the Qur'ān which refer to the exchange between Moses and the mysterious "Our servant" [Khidr] who is bestowed with Divine Knowledge (min ladunnā 'ilman), see 18:65
65. E. G. Browne, A literary history of Persia, 2:261. He renders the phrase which I have translated as "Bābā Tāhir, the enthralled soul" in the following manner: "Bábá Táhir, who was somewhat crazy in his manner. . . ."
66. H. Darke's translation of Nizām al-Mulk's Siyāsat-nāma, The Book of Government (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960), 161
67. A memorable episode is that of Ruzbihān Baqlī appearing to a Turkish Atābeg in a dream, and saying (while grabbing the Atābeg's ears, nonetheless!): "Turk! You will not sit in authority without getting your punishment!" See Carl Ernst, Ruzbihan Baqli: Mysticism and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian Sufism (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1996), 134
68. The conclusion of the Qur'ānic verse 16:90
69. For an insightful discussion of the "Protestant" bias in studying ritualized objects and relics, see Kevin Trainor, Relics, Ritual, and Representation in Buddhism: Rematerializing the Sri Lankan Theravada Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)
70. Other political figures included in the Asrār al-tawhīd include the governor of Khurāsān (Asrār al-tawhīd, 1:89)
71. the shahna [lieutenant or policeman] of Nīshāpūr (Asrār al-tawbīd, 1:111)
72. For various studies of Abū Sa'īd b. Abī 'l-Khayr, refer to R. A. Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1921)
73. Fritz Meier, Abū Sa'īd-i Abūl-Hayr, Wirklichkeit und Legend (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1976)
74. Sa'īd Nafisi, Sukhanān-i manzūm-i Abū Sa'īd-i Abū 'l-Khayr(Tehran: Sanā'ī, 1334/1955)
75. H. Ritter, "Abū Sa'īd Fadl Allāh B. Abi '1-Khayr," Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition, and Gerhard Böwering, "Abū Sa'īd Abī '1-Kayr," Encyclopaedia Iranica. Any new study of Abū Sa'īd would do well to utilize Muhammad Ridā Shafī'i-Kadkanī's newly reprinted re-edition of Asrar al-tawhid in two volumes (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Āgāh, 1366/1987; reprint 1376/1997). This tremendous piece of scholarship, far more than simply another edition, features a 239 page introduction about Abū Sa'id in the first volume. The second volume, itself over 600 pages, contains an excellent commentary, appendices, and notes upon the text. All references to the Persian text of the Asrār al-tawhīd are to Shaf̄i'ī- Kadkanī's edition
76. The best and most recent edition of this text is Jamāl al-Dīn Abū Rūh Lutf Allāh ibn Abū Sa'īd ibn Abī Sa'd, Hālāt u sukhanān-i Abu Sa'īd [b.]Abī 'l-Khayr, Muhammad Ridā Shafī'ī-Kadkanī, ed. (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Āgāh, 1366/1987)
77. Before Shafī'ī-Kadkanī's edition, the common edition of this text was the version edited by Zabihollah Safa (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Amīr Kabīr, 1348/1969). This edition was translated into English, French, and Arabic. The most successful attempt was the English translation by John O'Kane, The Secrets of God's Mystical Oneness (Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers in association with Bibliotheca Persica, 1992)
78. The French translation by Mohammad Achena [Muhammad Āshnā] was published as Les étapes mystiques du shaykh Abu sa'id Mysteres de la Connaissance de L'Unique (Paris:. UNESCO, 1974). The Arabic translation, undertaken by As'ad 'Abd al-Hādī Qandīl was published through the Al-Dār al-Misriyya li'1-Ta'līf wa 'l-Tarjuma in Cairo, 1966. Both the French and the Arabic translations rely on the older (and somewhat inferior) Safa edition. John O'Kane claims to have based his translation on Safa, but also taken the Shafī'ī-Kadkanī edition into consideration. The significance of the re-edition of the Persian text by Muhammad Ridā' Shafī'ī-Kadkanī has already been mentioned
79. See the assessment of the great scholar of Persian literature, Zabihullah Safa, Tārīkh-i adabīyātdar Irān, 2:982, who stated: " Asrāral-tawhīd is one of the undeniable masterpieces of Persian prose." He went on to praise the work's clarity of composition, lack of artificially ornate style, usage of authentic Persian vocabulary, and charm of narrative
80. Among the many turbulent events depicted at the time of the hagiographer's composition are the repeated raids of the Ghuzz tribes onto Khurāsān, and their capture of Sultan Sanjar. See Ibn Munawwar, Asrār al-tawhīd, 1:349-51, 378
81. Ibn Munawwar, Asrār al-tawhīd, 1:95
82. Vincent Cornell, Realm of the Saint, 63
83. Ibn al-Munawwar, Asrār al-tawhīd, 1:156
84. For a particularly thoughtful analysis of the human-Divine relationship in Islam, refer to the work of the late Japanese scholar Toshihiko Izutsu, God and Man in the Koran (Tokyo: The Keio Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies, 1964), 138 and 231. Izutsu describes the way in which in the Qur'ān, the concept of shukr ("thankfulness" or "gratitude") becomes a religious concept. A human being is intended to reflect on God's āyāt ("signs") using the faculty of the 'aql ("intellect"). The proper response to God's overwhelming Goodness and Mercy, then, becomes that of shukr. Izutsu expands on some of these themes in his equally thought-provoking work, Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qur'ān
85. Ibn al-Munawwar, Asrār al-tawhīd, 1:115-16
86. Ibn al-Munawwar, Asrār al-tawhīd, 1:96-99, mentions that in one day the Shaykh sent his followers seven times to the businessman for various items needed in the feast
87. Ibn al-Munawwar, Asrār al-tawhīd, 1:90
88. Ibn al-Munawwar, Asrār al-tawhīd, 1:179
89. Ibn al-Munawwar, Asrār al-tawhīd, 1:365-66
90. Richard King, Orientalism and Religion, 10
91. W. C. Smith, "Comparative Religion: Whither - and Why?," in Eliade and Kitagawa, eds., The History of Religions: Essays in Methodology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959), 43