The teaching relationship in Early Sufism: A reassessment of Fritz Meier's definition of the shaykh al-tarbiya and the shaykh al-talīm

Muslim World

Volumn 93, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 69-97

  Silvers Alario, Laury ^a  

^a SKIDMORE COLLEGE   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 61049435612     PISSN: 00274909     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1478-1913.00015     Document Type: Article

References (115)

1. Ibn Māja, Muqaddima, 17.
2. Fritz Meier has shown that formal institutionalized instruction in Sufism was realized in Khurāsān by the 5th/11th century (Fritz Meier, "Hurāsān und das Ende der klassichen Sūfik," Atti del Convegno internationale sul Tema: La Persia nel Medievo [Rome: 1971]: 131-156);
3. F. Meier, idem., Khurāsān and the End of Classical Sufism, Fritz Meier: Essays on Islamic Piety and Mysticism, trans. John O'Kane [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 19991, 189-219).
4. See also, Margaret Malamud, "Sufi Organizations and Structures of Authority in Medieval Nishapur," International Journal of Middle East Studies 26 (1994): 427-442.
5. Although several landmark articles have been written on aspects of the state of early Sufism, there is to date no comprehensive analytical study of the period. In this article, reference is made to the available sources texts, such as the treatises, manuals, and biographical sources. Here I have made special reference to Abū 'Abd al-Rahmān al-Sulaml's Tabaqāt al-Sūfiyya, ed. Nūr al-Dīn Shariba (Cairo, 1987);
6. its possible appendix Early Sufi Women: Dbikr an-niswa al-mūta'abbidāt as-sūfiyyāt by Abū 'Abd ar-Rahman ās-Sulamī, ed. and trans. by Rkia E. Cornell (Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1999);
7. Abu Nu'aym Ahmad b. 'Abd Allāh al-Isfahāni's Hilya al-awliyā' wa tabaqāt al-asfiya', X (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-Ilmiya, 1988);
8. Abū Nasi. 'Abd Allāh b. 'Alī al-Sarrāj's Kitāb al-luma' fi tasawwuf, ed., 'Abd al-Halīm Mahmūd (Egypt: Dār al-Kutub al-Hadīth bi.Misr, 1970);
9. Abu Bakr Muhammad b. Lshāq al-Kalābādhī's Doctrine of the Sufis, trans. by A. J. Arberry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991);
10. and Abū Tālib al-Makkī's Qūt al-qulūb, n.e. (Matba'a al-Anwār al-Mahmudiyya, 1985).
11. For a general survey of the scholarship on early Sufism see the following texts and Carl Ernst's The Shambala Guide to Sufism which provides an overview and criticism of the study of Sufism complementing the texts cited below (Carl Ernst, The Shambala Guide to Sufism, Boston: Shambala Press, 1997).
12. See Tor Andrae, In the Garden of Myrtles (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1987);
13. Gerhard Böwering, "Early Sufism between Persecution and Heresy," Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen Centuries of Controversies and Polemics, eds. Frederick de Jong and Bernd Radtke (Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1999);
14. Jacqueline Chabbi, "Remarques sur le développement historique des mouvements ascétiques et mystiques au Khurasan," Studia Islamica 46 (1977): 5.72;
15. William Chittick, Sufism: A Short Introduction (Oxford: One World Press, 2000);
16. Rkia E. Cornell, "Introduction: As.Sulamī and his Sufi Women," Early Sufi Women: Dhīkr ān-nīswā al-muta'abbidāt as.sufiyyāt by Abū 'Abd ar-Rahmān ās-Sulamī (Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1999);
17. Carl Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Sufism (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1985);
18. Wilferd Madelung, "Sufism and Karrāmiyya," Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran (Albany, NY: Bibliothecha Persica, 1988);
19. Louis Massignon, "tasawwuf," Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1953);
20. L. Massignon, idem., Essay on the Origins of Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism, trans. Benjamin Clark (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997);
21. 2 X, 1998;
22. B. Radtke, idem., "Theologen und Mystiker in Hurāsān and Transoxanien," Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft 136 (1986): 537-569;
23. Annemarie Schimmel, The Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975), 298;
24. Michael Sells, Early Islamic Mysticism (New York: Paulist Press, 1996);
25. Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971);
26. for an account of early Tabaqāt works and their transmission, see A. K. Alikberov, "Genre Tabakāt in early Sufi Tradition," Actas XVI Congreso UEAI (Salamanca: Agencia Española de la Cooperaciòn International Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas Union Européenne d'Arabisants et d'Islamisants, 1995): 23-30;
27. and Jawicl A. Mojaddedi, The Biographical Tradition in Sufism: The Tabaqāt genre from al-Sulamī to Jāmī (Surrey: Curzon Press, 2001).
28. Meier, "das Ende" 132-133 (191-192).
29. Richard W. Bulliet, Islam: The View from the Exige (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 22.
30. See Meier, "das Ende," especially pages 137-142 [197-202].
31. Interestingly, the forms of institutionalized Sufism such as madrasas, khanqahs, and more autocratic relationships between companion and shaykh existed in Khurāsān long before they were established in the West. Richard Bulliet argues in Islam: the View from the Edge that the institutionalization of the Islamic sciences .was not brought about by the so.called Seljuk "Sunni revival-" Rather, he demonstrates that centralized madrasas with organized curricula had already been in place in Khurāsān prior to the establishment of madrasas and organized curricula in the West under Seljuk rule. Bulliet documents that Khurāsāni scholars moved West bringing their educational institutions, which were then legitimized by the Seljuks and legitimized the Seljuks in turn. Following Meier's observation here, it would be useful to see if Sufism became institutionalized in the same manner as the other Islamic religious sciences.
32. See my dissertation Tawhīd in Early Sufism: The Life and Work of Abū Bakr al-Wāsitī Cd. ca. 320/932) (SUNY Stony Brook, 2002).
33. Makdisi, Rise of Colleges, 7.
34. Also see Bulliet, Islam, 18.
35. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Religion and Politics under the Early 'Abbāsids (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997), 212-213.
36. Franz Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970), chapter 5.
37. Makdisi, Rise of Colleges, 2. Makdisi writes that some five hundred schools of law disappeared by the 3rd/9th century. Numerous schools persisted until only four remained in the 8th/14th century.
38. Also see Bulliet's Islam for a discussion of the diversity of early Islamic education.
39. Bulliet, Islam, 86.
40. See for example Montgomery Watt, The Formative Period of Islamic Thought (Oxford: One World Press, 1998), 264. Meier mentions it as a given in the first paragraph of "das Ende" (Meier, "das Ende," page 131 [188]).
41. Omid Safi, "Bargaining .with Baraka: Persian Sufism, Mysticism, and Pre.Modern Politics," Muslim World 91: 3-4 (2001): 259-287.
42. Hodgson, Venture of Islam, I 393.
43. Shams al-Dīn Abū 'Abd Allāh Muhammad b. Ahmad b. 'Uthmān al-Dhahabī (d. 748/1347.8), Siyār a'lām al-nubalā, ed. Shu'ayb al-Arna'ut, 28 vols. (Beirut: Mu'assasat al-Risāla, 1996), XIV, no. 33, 63.
44. Dhahabi, Siyār a'lām al-nubalā', XIV, no. 298, 525.
45. Sulamī, Tabaqāt, 180;
46. Dhahabi, Siyār a'lām al-nubalā', XIV, no. 138, 234;
47. Abū Bakr Ahmad b. 'Alī al-Khatīb al-Baghdādi, Ta'rikh Baghdād (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-'Arabi, ca. 1966), VIII, 430-432.
48. Abu Nu'aym, Hilya, X 255.
49. SulamI, Tabaqāt, 440.
50. Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Mahjīb, 105.106, 117.180;
51. also see for example Abū Nu'aym, Hilya, X 14.
52. Sulamī, Early Sufi Women, 192. Translation Rkia Cornell with my changes. 29. Abu Nu'aym, Hilya, X 6.
53. Sarrāj, Kitāb al-luma,' 164. This Hadīth is not indexed in Wensinck.
54. Baghdādi, Ta'rikh Baghdād, VIII, no. 4330, 214.
55. Watt, The Formative Period of Islamic Thought, 288.
56. Abū Nu'aym, Hilya, X 230.
57. Also see Böwering, Mystical Vision of Existence, 77-8.
58. Abū Nu'aym, Hilya, X 255.
59. See Mojaddedi's The Biographical Tradition in Early Sufism for a discussion of how tabaqāt works make a direct claim to authoritative continuity reaching back to the Prophet alongside the outward scholars of the religious sciences (see for example Mojaddedi, Biographical Tradition, 11-12, 20-21).
60. Sulamī, Tabaqāt, 386.387.
61. See Kalābādhī, Doctrine of the Sufis, 4.
62. See for example Sarrāj's sections on the errors of various practices and doctrines, though his critiques are also present in many other sections of Kitāb al-luma'.
63. Sarrāj, Kitāb al-luma', 40 (Nicholson, 20.21);
64. Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, 164.
65. See for example, Sulamī, Tabaqāt, 357.
66. Sarrāj, Kitāb al-lumā', 22 (Nicholson, 5);
67. Also Meier describes an anonymous manuscript dated to the 4th/10th century in which he found a citation of this non.canonical Hadīth in the article, "Ein wichtiger handschriftenfund zur sunfi" Oriens 20 (1967): 60-106.
68. see pages 82-91 [O'Kane, Essays on Islamic Piety, 160.162];
69. cf., idem., "das Ende," 141 [202, 203 n. 46].
70. It may not always accord with the actual usage in the later period either, but that remains to examined at another time. For example, Ibn al-'Arabi and his followers regularly use "companion" as the general term for all those under the direction of a shaykh, whereas murīd has a specific technical connotation.
71. Sarrāj, Kitab al-luma', 234.237 (Nicholson, 176.179).
72. Meier notes that early descriptions of companionship show elements of tarbiya similar to those he identifies in Naysabūr (Meier, "das Ende," 147 [210]. Mojaddedi writes that Sulamī uses the term consistently to mark relationships through which one acquires authority
73. (Mojaddedi, Biographical Tradition, 14, 19, 186 n. 32).
74. The terms teacher (ustddh) and student (tilmīz) seem to be used less often than, but interchangeably with, shaykh and companion. See for example Abū Nu'aym, Hilya, X 228.229.
75. Sulami, Tabaqdt, 391.
76. Sarraj, Kitab al-luma', 236.237 (Nicholson, 178.179).
77. Qassim al-Samarri discusses the history of scholarly dispute over the identity of Abū 'Alī al-Sindī and exactly what it was the two taught each other. He shows that the two were equals who shared their knowledge with each other. A. J. Arberry argues, through another version of the anecdote, that the two taught each other the inward realities of certain chapters of the Qur'ān (Qassim al-Samarri, The Theme of Ascension in Mystical Writing [Baghdad: National Printing and Publishing Co., 1968], 215-224).
78. For example, Sulamī quotes Sufis using the term in several contexts: as not yet on the path, an early stage of the path, and being on the path in general (Sulamī Tabaqāt, 26. 135, 179, 211, 216, 255, 309, 313, 318, 340, 356, 408, 495).
79. Hujwīrī quotes others and uses the term murīd himself to designate someone on an early stage on the path, an aspirant on the path in general, a friend of God (walī) in respect of his active aspiration toward God, one on the path of love, and as referring to God himself (HujwM, Kashf al-mahjūb, 84, 107, 157, 211, 263, 370, 414).
80. Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, I 112.
81. For an account of .women Hadīth scholars see Muhammad Zubayr Siddīqī, Hadīth Literature: Its Origin, Development, and Special Features (Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1993), appendix I.
82. There are 103 listings in the Tabaqāt, but there are two entries that contain the records for two men each.
83. Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Luma', 19 (Nicholson, 3);
84. see also Kalābādhi, Doctrine of the Sufis
85. It was not possible to track the travels of the Sufis from Sulamī's Tabaqāt as he does not always mention them. They can be found documented in other sources.
86. Gerhard Böwering, The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam: The Qur'ānic Hermeneutics of the Sufi Sabl At-Tustarī (d. 283/896) (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1980), 47-48.
87. See for example the Kattanī story below.
88. See "das Ende," as mentioned above, for examples of spiritual direction in the early period that are similar to Khurāsānian tarbiya.
89. Sulamī, Dhikr al-niswa, 152.
90. Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Mahjūb, 133-4.
91. Sularnī, Tabaqāt, 113.
92. It should be noted that although it is common in the post.institutional period for people to attach themselves to one shaykh alone, people continue to seek out direction from more than one shaykh to this day.
93. See, for example, Kitāb al-luma', 220 (Nicholson, 429);
94. Abū Nasr 'Abd al-Wahhāb al-Subkī (d. 771/1370), Tabaqāt al-shāfi'iyya al-kubrā, eds. Abd al-Fatāh Hamd al-Hulw and Mahmud Muhammad al-Tanāhī (Giza, Cairo: Hijr lil.Tibā'a wa al-Nashr wa al-tawzī' al-i'lān, 1992) II 274, entry no. 60.
95. Also, Abū Bakr al-Wasītī is reported to have regularly recited his litany in a large public gathering (Zakarīyā al-Ansārī (d. 916/1511), Sharh al-risālat al-qushayriyya [n.p., n.d.], 1178).
96. Also, Sarī al-Saqatī mentions "my litany" in a saying (Sulamī, 'Tabaqāt, 50). The litanies recorded in Makkī's Qūt al-qulūb do not seem to differ in nature from contemporary Sufi and popular litanies.
97. See for example Sarrāj, Kitāb al-luma', 242, 264 (Nicholson, 183, 199).
98. Zakarīyā al-Ansārī, Sharh al-risāla, I 178;
99. Muhammad Ibn al-Munawwar (d. 598. 9/1202), Asrār al-tawhīd fi maqāmāt al-shaykh Abī Sa'īd. (Egypt: al-Dār al-Misriyya lil-Tālīf wa Tarjama, 1966[?]), 295;
100. idem, The Secrets of God's Mystical Oneness [Asrār al-Tawhīd], trans. John O'Kane (Costa Mesa, CA. and New York: Mazda Press and Bibiotheca Persica, 1992), 395;
101. see also, Farīd al-Dīn Muhammad b. Ibrāhīm 'Attār (d. 627/1230), Tadbkirāt al-awliyā', ed. Muhammad Isti'lāmī (Tehran: Zuwwār, 1346/1967), 733 (Nicholson edition, 266.7).
102. Kalābādhī, Doctrine of the Sufis, 145-7.
103. Dhahaabī, Siyār a'lām, XIV 71.
104. On this subject see Bowering, "Early Sufism between Persecution and Heresy," op. cit.;, Siyār a'lām
105. and Carl Ernst, op. cit., Siyār a'lām
106. Sulamī, Tabaqāt, 185, 295.
107. Dhahabī, Siyār a'lām al-nubalā', X, no. 34, 184.
108. Qushayrī, Risāla, 131.
109. Alikberov, "Genre Tabakāt," 23-30.
110. Sulamī, Tabaqāt, 414.
111. This text is no longer extant, see GAS I 666.
112. Also see Alikberow, "Genre Tabakāt,"
113. Fuat Sezgin remarks that Ibn Shadhan's Hikāyāt al-Sūffiyya appears to have been a major source for Sulamī (GAS I 666).
114. See the index in Sulamī, Tabaqāt, 544-45.
115. Louis Massignon, Essay on the Origins, 89.90.