Tasawwuf Shuyukh
[9] Tasawwuf: al-Ju`i
[10] Tasawwuf: al-Junayd
[11]
Tasawwuf: al-Tirmidhi
[12] Tasawwuf: al-Baghdadi
[13] Tasawwuf: al-Qushayri
[14] Tasawwuf: al-Ansari
[15] Tasawwuf: al-Ghazali
[16] ' Ibn `Aqil al-Hanbali
Bismillah al-Rahman al-Raheem
was-salaat was-salaam `alaa Rasul-illah wa
'alaa alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam
[9] ON TASAWWUF
al-Qasim ibn `Uthman al-Ju`i (d. 248)
One of the great saints of Damascus who
took hadith from Sufyan ibn `Uyayna. Ibn
al-Jawzi relates in Sifat al-safwa that
al-Ju`i explained that he got the name
al-Ju`i ("of the hunger") because
Allah
had strengthened him against physical
hunger by means of spiritual hunger. He
said:
Even if I were left one month
without food I would not care. O
Allah, you have done this with me:
Therefore complete it for me!(1)
Al-Dhahabi writes about him in Siyar
a`lam al-nubala':
[#506] al-`Abdi, known as Qasim al-
Ju`i: The Imam, the exemplar, the
saint, the Muhaddith... the Shaykh
of the Sufis and the friend of Ahmad
ibn al-Hawari. (al-imam al-qudwa al-
wali al-muhaddith Abu `Abd Al-Malik
Al-Qasim ibn 'Uthman al-`Abdi al-
Dimashqi, Shaykh as-sufiyya wa rafiq
Ahmad
ibn al-Hawari,'urifa bi al-
Ju'i).
Ibn al-Jawzi also relates that Ibn
Abu Hatim al-Razi said:
I entered Damascus to see the
transcribers of hadith. I passed by
Qasim al-Ju`i's circle and saw a
large crowd sitting around him as he
spoke. I approached and heard him
say:
Do without others in your life
in five matters:
- If you are present among
people, don't be known;
- If you are absent, don't be
missed;
- If you know something, your
advice is unsought;
- If you say something, your
words are rejected;
- If you do something, you
receive no credit for it.
I advise you five other things
as well:
- If you are wronged, do not
reciprocate it;
- If you are praised, don't be
glad;
- If you are blamed, don't be
distraught;
- If you are called liar, don't
be angry;
- If you are betrayed, don't
betray in return.
Ibn Abu Hatim said: "I made these
words all the benefit I got from
visiting Damascus."(2)
(1) Ibn al-Jawzi, Sifat al-safwa 2(2):200 (#763).
(2) Ibid.
Bismillah al-Rahman al-Raheem
was-salaat was-salaam `alaa Rasul-illah wa
'alaa alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam
[10] ON TASAWWUF
Imam al-Junayd al-Baghdadi (d. 297)
The Imam of the world in his time,
al-Junayd
al-Baghdadi, said defining a Sufi:
al-sufi man labisa al-sufa `ala al-safa
wa ittaba`a tariq al-mustafa
wa athaqa al-jasada ta`m al-jafa
wa kanat al-dunya minhu `ala qafa
The Sufi is the one who wears wool on
top of purity, followed the path of the
Prophet, endured bodily strains
dedicating his life to worship and
reclining from pleasures, and left
behind all that pertains to the
world.(1)
The text of al-Junayd's book Kitab dawa'
al-arwah (Book of the cure of souls) was
edited in Arabic and translated into
English
by the scholar A.J. Arberry.(2)
(1) In `Afif al-Din Abu Muhammad `Abd
Allah Ibn As`ad al-Yafi`i (d. 768), Nashr
al-
mahasin
al-ghaliya fi fadl mashayikh al-
sufiyya
(Beirut : Dar Sadir, 1975).
(2) al-Junayd, Kitab dawa' al-arwah,
ed.
& trans. A.J. Arberry in Journal of the
Royal
Asiatic Society (1937).
Bismillah al-Rahman al-Raheem
was-salaat was-salaam `alaa Rasul-illah wa
'alaa alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam
[11] ON TASAWWUF
al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi (d. 320)
Abu `Abd Allah Muhammad ibn `Ali al-Hakim
al-
Tirmidhi al-Hanafi, a faqih and muhaddith
of
Khorasan and one of the great early authors
of tasawwuf whom Ibn `Arabi particularly
quotes. [This is not the great hadith
master
Abu `Isa al-Tirmidhi.] He wrote many books,
of which the following have been published:
*
al-Masa'il al-maknuna: The concealed
matters;
*
Adab al-nafs: The discipline of the ego;
*
Adab al-muridin: Ethics of the seekers of
Allah, or Ethics of Sufi students;
*
al-amthal min al-kitab wa al-sunna:
Examples from the Qur'an and the Sunna;
*
Asrar mujahadat al-nafs: The secrets of
the struggle against the ego;
*
`Ilm al-awliya': The knowledge of the
saints;
*
Khatm al-wilaya: The Seal of sainthood;
*
Shifa' al-`ilal: The healing of defects;
*
Kitab manazil al-`ibad min al-`ibadah, aw,
Manazil al-qasidin ila Allah: The book of
the positions of worshippers in relation
to worship, or: The positions of the
travellers to Allah;
*
Kitab ma`rifat al-asrar: Book of the
knowledge of secrets
*
Kitaba al-A`da' wa-al-nafs; wa al-`aql wa
al-hawa: The book of the enemies, the ego,
the mind, and vain desires;
*
al-Manhiyyat: The prohibitions;
*
Nawadir al-usul fi ma`rifat ahadith al-
Rasul: The rare sources of the religion
concerning the knowledge of the Prophet's
sayings;
*
Taba'i` al-nufus : wa-huwa al-kitab al-
musamma bi al-akyas wa al-mughtarrin: The
different characters of souls, or: The
Book of the clever ones and the deluded
ones;
* al-Kalam `ala ma`na la ilaha illa Allah:
Discourse on the meaning of "There is
no
deity but Allah."
Bismillah al-Rahman al-Raheem
was-salaat was-salaam `alaa Rasul-illah wa
'alaa alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam
[12] ON TASAWWUF
Imam Abu Mansur `Abd al-Qahir al-Baghdadi
(d. 429)
One of those who possessed encompassing knowledge
of the
multifarious views and beliefs of the
groups of Muslims and non-
Muslims, he writes in his Farq bayn
al-firaq:
Know that Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama`a are
divided in eight
groups of people... the sixth group being
the Sufi Ascetics
(al-zuhhad al-sufiyya), who have seen things for what they
are and therefore have abstained, who have
known by
experience and therefore have taken heed
truly, who have
accepted Allah's allotment and contented
themselves with what
is within reach.
They have understood that hearing, sight, and thought
are all accountable for their good and
their evil and subject
to reckoning to an atom's weight. In
consequence they have
harnessed themselves with the best harness
in preparation for
the Day of the return. Their speech has run
the two paths of
precepts and subtle allusions in the manner
of the People of
Hadith but without the pursuit of idle
discourse. They
neither seek self-display in doing good,
nor do they leave
doing good out of shyness. Their religion
is the declaration
of singleness and the disavowal of
similitude. Their school
is the commital of matters to Allah,
reliance upon Him,
submission to His order, satisfaction with
what they have
received from Him, and shunning all
objection to Him. "Such
is the bounty from Allah, He bestoweth it
upon whom He will,
and Allah is of infinite bounty"
(57:21, 67:4).(1)
Imam `Abd al-Qahir al-Baghdadi writes in Usul al-din:
The book Tarikh al-sufiyya (History of the
Sufis, more
commonly known as Tabaqat al-sufiyya or
layers of the Sufis)
by Abu `Abd al-Rahman Sulami comprises the
biographies of
nearly a thousand sheikhs of the Sufis,
none of whom belonged
to heretical sects and all of whom were of
the Sunni
community, with the exception of only three
of them: Abu
Hilman of Damascus, who pretended to be of
the Sufis but
actually believed in incarnationism
(hulul); Husayn ibn
Mansur al-Hallaj, whose case remains
problematic, though Ibn
`Ata' Allah, Ibn Khafif, and Abu al-Qasim
al-Nasir Abadi
approved of him [as did the Hanbalis Ibn
`Aqil, Ibn Qudama,
and al-Tufi]; and al-Qannad, whom the Sufis
accused of being
a Mu`tazili and rejected, for the good does
not accept the
wicked.(2)
(1) `Abd al-Qahir al-Baghdadi, al-Farq bayn al-firaq
(Beirut:
dar al-kutub al-`ilmiyya, n.d.) 242-243.
(2) `Abd al-Qahir al-Baghdadi, Usul
al-din p. 315-16.
Bismillah
al-Rahman al-Raheem
was-salaat
was-salaam `alaa Rasul-illah wa 'alaa alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam
[13] ON TASAWWUF
Imam Abu al-Qasim al-Qushayri (d. 465)
A muhaddith who transmitted hadith to
pupils by the thousands in
Naysabur, in which he fought the Mu`tazila
until he flew to Mecca
to protect his life, al-Qushayri was the
student of the great Sufi
shaykh Abu `Ali al-Daqqaq. He was also a
mufassir who wrote a
complete commentary of the Qur'an entitled
Lata'if al-isharat bi
tafsir al-Qur'an (The subtleties and
allusions in the commentary
of the Qur'an). His most famous work,
however, is his Risala ila
al-sufiyya or Epistle to the Sufis, which
is one of the early
complete manuals of the science of
tasawwuf, together with Abu
Nasr al-Sarraj's (d. 378) Kitab al-luma`
(Book of lights), Abu
Talib al-Makki's (d. 386) Qut al-qulub fi
mu`amalat al-mahbub wa
wasf tariq al-murid ila maqam al-tawhid
(The nourishment of hearts
in dealing with the Beloved and the
description of the seeker's
way to the station of declaring oneness),
Abu Bakr al-Kalabadhi's
(d. 391) al-Ta`arruf li madhhab ahl
al-tasawwuf (Defining the
school of the People of Self-purification),
and `Abd al-Rahman al-
Sulami's (d. 411) Tabaqat al-sufiyya
(Biographical layers of the
Sufis).
Bismillah al-Rahman al-Raheem
was-salaat was-salaam `alaa Rasul-illah wa
'alaa alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam
[14] ON TASAWWUF
Shaykh Abu Isma`il `Abd Allah al-Harawi
al-Ansari (d. 481)
A Sufi shaykh, hadith master (hafiz), and
Qur'anic commentator
(mufassir) of the Hanbali school, one of
the most fanatical
enemies of innovations, and a student of
Khwaja Abu al-Hasan al-
Kharqani (d. 425) the grandshaykh of the
early Naqshbandi Sufi
path.
He is documented by Dhahabi in his Tarikh al-islam and
Siyar a`lam al-nubala', Ibn Rajab in his
Dhayl tabaqat al-
hanabila,
and Jami in his book in Persian Manaqib-i Shaykh al-
Islam Ansari.
He was a prolific author of Sufi treatises among which are:
*
Manazil al-sa'irin, on which Ibn Qayyim wrote a commentary
entitled Madarij al-salikin;
*
Tabaqat al-sufiyya (Biographical layers of the sufi masters),
which is the expanded version of the earlier work by Abu `Abd
al-Rahman al-Sulami (d. 411) bearing the same title.
*
Kitab `ilal al-maqamat (Book of the pitfalls of spiritual
stations), describing the characteristics of spiritual states
for the student and the teacher in the Sufi path;
*
Kitab sad maydan (in Persian, Book of the hundred fields), a
commentary on the meanings of love in the verse: "If you love
Allah, follow me, and Allah will love you!" (3:31). This book
collects al-Harawi's lectures in the years 447-448 at the Great
Mosque of Herat (in present-day Afghanistan) in which he
presents his most eloquent exposition of the necessity of
following the Sufi path.
*
Kashf al-asrar wa `uddat al-abrar (in Persian, the Unveiling of
the secrets and the harness of the righteous), in ten volumes
by al-Maybudi, it contains al-Harawi's Qur'anic commentary.
[15] ON TASAWWUF
Hujjat al-Islam Imam Ghazali (d. 505)
"The Proof of Islam" Abu Hamid
al-Tusi al-
Ghazali, the Reviver of the Fifth Islamic
century, scholar of usul al-fiqh, and
author
of the most well-known work on tasawwuf,
Ihya' `ulum al-din (The revival of the
religious sciences). He says in his
autobiography, al-Munqidh min al-dalal
(Deliverance from error):
The Sufi path consists in cleansing the
heart from whatever is other than
Allah... I concluded that the Sufis are
the seekers in Allah's Way, and their
conduct is the best conduct, and their
way is the best way, and their manners
are the most sanctified. They have
cleaned their hearts from other than
Allah and they have made them as
pathways for rivers to run, carrying
knowledge of Allah.(1)
As Ibn `Ajiba mentions in his Iqaz al-
himam, al-Ghazali declared tasawwuf to be a
fard `ayn or personal obligation upon every
legally responsible Muslim man and woman,
"as
none but Prophets are devoid of internal
defects and diseases."(2)
(1) al-Ghazali, al Munqidh min al dalal, p.
131.
(2) Ibn `Ajiba, Iqaz al-himam p. 8.
[16] ON TASAWWUF
Abu al-Wafa' Ibn `Aqil al-Hanbali (d. 513)
Like al-Harawi al-Ansari, he was a hafiz
and
faqih of the Hanbali school who was an
ardent
defender of the Sunna and of tasawwuf. He
is
considered a reviver of the school of Imam
Ahmad, although he had a number of teachers
from different schools. Like other Sufis of
his school such as Ibn Qudama (d. 620) and
al-Tufi (d. 715), Ibn `Aqil considered al-
Hallaj a wali (saint) and did not doubt his
sincerity and righteousness. Ibn al-Jawzi
reported that he had in his own possession
the autograph copy of a treatise of Ibn
`Aqil
written in praise of al-Hallaj, entiled
Juz'
fi nasr karamat al-Hallaj (Opuscule in
praise
of al-Hallaj's gifts). Ibn `Aqil was a
polymath and his Kitab al-funun reportedly
numbered up to eight hundred volumes of
which
only one is extant.(1)
(1) See George Makdisi's article in the
Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed., s.v.
"Ibn `Akil."
Reproduced with permission from Shaykh M.
Hisham Kabbani's
_The Repudiation of "Salafi" Innovations_ (Kazi, 1996) p. 336.
Blessings and Peace on the Prophet, his
Family, and his Companions
GFH Abu Hammad
[1996-11-16]
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