Seeing God in Sufi Qurʾan Commentaries

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 EDINBURGH STUDIES IN ISLAMIC APOCALYPTICISM AND
ESCHATOLOGY

This series features studies devoted to end-­time expectations in Islam

and the intellectual, social and political contexts in which they occur and
become virulent, from the beginning of Islam until the twenty-­first century.
Concerning the apocalyptic aspect, the series is dedicated to investigating
apocalypticism in Muslim thought and history: notions of the catalytic
events ushering in the end of history, mahdism and other forms of (political
and non-­political) millenarianism. Eschatologically, studies in this series
will examine traditions of imagining and reasoning about the hereafter:
judgment, salvation, and reward and punishment in paradise and hell.

Series Editors
Professor David Cook (Rice University) and Professor Christian Lange
(Utrecht University)

Editorial Advisory Board

Professor Abbas Amanat, Professor Fred Donner, Professor Jean-­Pierre
Filiu, Professor Yohanan Friedman, Professor Mercedes García-­Arenal,
Professor Mohammed Khalil, Professor Daniel De Smet and Professor
Roberto Tottoli

Titles in the series

‘The Book of Tribulations’: The Syrian Muslim Apocalyptic Tradition,
An Annotated Translation by Nuʾaym b. Ḥammād al-Marwazī
Edited and translated by David Cook
Seeing God in Sufi Qurʾan Commentaries: Crossings between This World and
the Otherworld
Pieter Coppens
Eschatology in Classical Islamic Mysticism: From the Ninth to the Twelfth
Centuries
Michael Ebstein
The Jihadist Preachers of the End Times: ISIS Apocalyptic Propaganda
Bronislav Ostransky
The World of Image in Islamic Philosophy: Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, Shahrazuri
and Beyond
L. W. C. van Lit
An Apocalyptic History of the Early Fatimid Empire
Jamel A. Velji

edinburghuniversitypress.com/series/esiae

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 Seeing God in Sufi Qurʾan
Commentaries
Crossings between This World and
the Otherworld

Pieter Coppens

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 Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK.
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 Contents

List of Figures and Tables viii

List of Abbreviations ix

1 Introduction 1
Main Questions and Objectives 2
The Study of Sufism in its Circles of Influence: Some Notes on
Nomenclature 6
Sufism and ‘Orthodoxy’: Periphery and Centre? 10
History and Eschatology in Early Sufism 13
What is a ‘Sufi’ Qurʾan Commentary? Defining the Genre 16
Using Tafsīr as a Source for Intellectual History: Some Notes
on Method and Sources 19
Structure of the Work 23

2 Sufi Qurʾan Commentaries: The Rise of a Genre 39

Introduction 39
Nishapur in the Fourth/Tenth and Fifth/Eleventh Centuries 40
Al-Sulamī and his Commentary: Witness to the Formative
Period of Sufism 46
Al-Qushayrī and his Commentary 54
Maybudī and his Commentary 57

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 vi | seeing god in sufi qur ʾan commentaries

Al-Daylamī and his Commentary 61

Rūzbihān al-Baqlī and his Commentary 65
Conclusion 68

3 The Ultimate Boundary Crossing: Paradise and Hell in

the Commentaries 83
Introduction 83
Attitudes towards the Hereafter in the Formative Period of
Sufism 83
Eschatological Commentary of al-Sulamī’s Major Sources 85
Eschatological Commentary in al-Qushayrī’s Laṭāʾif
al-ishārāt 97
Hierarchies in the Hereafter: Maybudī 100
Paradise as Ṣadaqa and Shirk: Al-Daylamī’s Taṣdīq al-maʿārif 104
Eschatological Commentary in Rūzbihān’s ʿArāʾis al-bayān 109
Conclusion 120

4 The First Boundary Crossing: Adam Descending 135

Introduction 135
Adam in the Qurʾan 137
The Banishment of Adam in Tafsīr, Narrative Religious
Literature and Theology 138
The Banishment of Adam in Sufism: Non-tafsīr Sources 140
Loss of Nearness and Vision: The Tafsīr of al-Sulamī 143
Teaching Good Manners: The Banishment in al-Qushayrī 146
Elevation through Degradation: The Banishment in Maybudī 148
The Banishment in al-Daylamī 151
The Banishment in Rūzbihān 151
Conclusion 160

5 Excursus: Embodying the Vision of God in Theology and

Sufism 174
Introduction 174
Theological Discussions on the Vision of God 176
A Typology of This-worldly Vision in Early Sufism 178

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 contents | vii

The Commentators on the Vision of God in their Non-tafsīr

Works 184
Conclusion 191

6 Arinī: Declined at the Boundary? 201

Introduction 201
Arinī anẓur ilayk: Q 7:143 between Exegesis and Theology 203
Polyvalence: The Early Sufi Readings in al-Sulamī 208
From Sobriety to Intoxication: Al-Qushayrī Reading Moses 214
Vision of the Heart as a Foretaste of Paradise: Maybudī 215
Vision through Annihilation (Fanāʾ): Al-Daylamī 217
Indirect Vision through God’s Attributes and Acts: Rūzbihān 218
Conclusion 221

7 A Vision at the Utmost Boundary 227

Introduction 227
The Qurʾan and the Night Journey 228
Divine or Angelic Manifestation: Readings of Sūrat al-Najm 229
Vision and Nearness: Al-Sulamī 235
Angelic Manifestation: Al-Qushayrī 236
Muhammad Surpassing Moses: Maybudī 237
Muhammad’s Light Entering God’s World: Al-Daylamī 239
God Seeing God: Rūzbihān’s Vision through Unification
(Ittiḥād) 240
Conclusion 246

8 Conclusion 256

Bibliography 267
Index 288

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 Figures and Tables

Figures

1.1 E
 schatological scheme of Baghdadi Sufism 15
1.2 E
 schatological structure and crossings of the prophets 24
3.1 I nteriorised gardens 119
8.1 E schatological structure and crossings of the prophets 259

Tables

3.1 G ardens of the knowers 116

7.1 ‘Two bow-lengths away or even closer’ 231
7.2 ‘The heart did not belie what he/it saw’ 233
7.3 ‘He saw him/Him at another descent, at the lote tree of the
utmost boundary’ 234
7.4 G enealogy of Sufi sayings in the sources 249
8.1 V isions of God 259

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 Abbreviations

BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

EI2 The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by H. A. R. Gibb et al.
Second edition. 12 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1954–2004.
EI3 The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by Kate Fleet et al.
Third edition (online). Leiden: Brill, 2007–.
EIr Encyclopaedia Iranica. Edited by Ehsan Yarshater et al.
Online edition. New York: Bibliotheca Persica Press,
1996–.
EQ The Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾan. Edited by Jane Dammen
McAuliffe et al. 5 vols. Leiden: Brill, 2001–6.
ER2 Encyclopedia of Religion. Edited by Lindsay Jones. Second
edition. 14 vols. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005.
IJMES International Journal of Middle East Studies
JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society
JQS Journal of Qurʾanic Studies
JSS Journal of Sufi Studies
MIDEO Mélanges de l’Institut dominicain d’études orientales du
Caire
SI Studia Islamica
TG Ess, Josef van. Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3.
Jahrhundert Hidschra: Eine Geschichte des religiösen

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 x | seeing god in sufi qur ʾan commentaries

Denkens im frühen Islam. 6 vols. Berlin and New York: De

Gruyter, 1991–7.
ZDMG Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft

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 introduction | 1

1
Introduction

The Qurʾan commentary attributed to the early Islamic mystic Sahl

al-Tustarī (d. 283/896) mentions a story where Sahl is leading the
night prayer for his students. When he recites the verse ‘And their
Lord gives them a pure drink’ (Q 76:21), he moves his mouth as if he
is drinking. When his students ask him afterwards whether he was
drinking something during the prayer, he answers, ‘By God, if I had not
experienced its taste when I recited it as if I was drinking it, I would
not have acted so.’1 Elsewhere in the commentary, another example
of this-worldly consumption of a paradisiacal delight is mentioned.
While on a seashore a friend of God (walī) offers Sahl a pomegranate
from Paradise to eat. When he eats it, in astonishment the walī says,
‘Receive glad tidings of Paradise, for I did not know your rank before
you ate it; no one eats of the food of Paradise in this life except the
people of Paradise.’2
These two anecdotes testify to the fact that in early Islamic mysti-
cism forms of boundary crossing from the ‘otherworld’ into this world
through mystical senses were considered conceivable; in both stories
an experience of a taste (dhawq) of the delights of Paradise is claimed.
In the first story it is the contemplation and recitation of a Qurʾanic
verse during prayer that evokes this experience; according to the
author the Qurʾan is at the heart of being able to taste this ­paradisiacal

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drink. These two stories from the Qurʾan commentary attributed to

Sahl raise several questions about the nature of Sufi conceptions of
the boundary between the here and the hereafter, as well as on the
place, role and function of the Qurʾanic text within Sufi imaginations of
this boundary. It also shows that works of tafsīr (exegesis) composed
by Sufis may be a rich source for arriving at a better understanding of
Sufi conceptions of the relation between the here and the hereafter.
It is these matters that are addressed in this study. In this introduc-
tory chapter, the main issues are specified and contextualised, and
some aspects of the terminology, theory and method attached to them
are discussed. In so doing the salient contributions to each of these
themes in the secondary literature are also reviewed.

Main Questions and Objectives

This study has two main objectives, which are complementary and
mutually inform each other. First, it aims to write a history of Sufi
conceptions of the hereafter in what Marshall Hodgson defined as
the ‘Islamic Earlier Middle Period’ (950­–1250 ce).3 Second, it aims to
provide a better understanding of five Sufi Qurʾan commentaries hail-
ing from the same period. The complementarity of these two subjects
lies in the expectation that the vast and little-studied material that is
available in Sufi commentaries will prove to be a valuable source for
reconstructing Sufi conceptions of the hereafter in this period, while
simultaneously the case study of Sufi eschatology serves as a good
tool to learn more about the development and characteristics of this
genre of Qurʾan commentary in the same period.
As for the aspect of Sufi eschatology, the central point of interest in
this study is the boundary crossing from this world to the otherworld
and vice versa in the form of the vision of God. In his monograph on
the Islamic hereafter, Christian Lange contends that typical of Muslim
conceptions of the hereafter is that the boundary between the two
abodes is ‘rather thin and permeatable’ and frequently crossed, and
that ‘the otherworld is in a continuous and intimate conversation with
the world of the here-and-now’.4 In this study, I pursue the hypoth-
esis that this is also and even more the case for Sufi conceptions of

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 introduction | 3

the otherworld. I explore the possibility that in the case of Sufism

this boundary crossing revolves especially, though not exclusively,
around the topic of meeting with and vision of God. In Sufi imagi-
nations, the otherworld is, I suggest, primarily conceived to be the
domain of meeting with God, communion with Him and vision of Him.
While most Sunni traditionists and theologians restricted the vision
of God to specific moments in Paradise, in some Sufi imaginations this
vision would become eternal and uninterrupted. The hereafter is thus
God-centred: the enjoyments of Paradise become mere veils to this
encounter with God, while the punishment of Hell consists of being
deprived from nearness to and vision of Him.
Some Sufis also considered nearness to and vision of God to be the
main characteristics of the primordial Paradise inhabited by Adam.
With Adam’s banishment from this primordial Paradise, humankind
was deprived of these characteristics: this-worldly life, then, means to
be deprived of His nearness and of the vision of Him. For some Sufis,
especially within those strands of Sufism stressing the passionate love
(ʿishq) of and longing (shawq) for God, the longing for this meeting
with and vision of God in the hereafter was purportedly so strong that
they wished to attain it in this world. Some of the stations and states
that they claimed to attain during this-worldly life thus took the form
of a ‘taste’ of the otherworldly encounter with God.
To support these claimed experiences, some Sufi scholars theo-
logically argued that God may also be seen in this world: the highest
reward of Paradise could be brought into the present. Two Qurʾanic
narratives were often used to legitimise their viewpoint on this issue,
centred around two prophetic models: Moses’s request to see God
during his seclusion on Mount Sinai (Q 7:143) and Muhammad’s con-
tested visionary encounter with God during his night journey, which
is read into Q 53:1–18. These two Qurʾanic passages will form two
case studies of boundary crossing during this-worldly life in separate
chapters in this study (Chapters 6 and 7), together with Sufi concep-
tions of the first boundary crossing, namely the banishment of Adam
from primordial Paradise (Chapter 4), and the final boundary cross-
ing of humankind to the hereafter (Chapter 3).

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As for the Sufi Qurʾan commentaries, our main point of interest is

the relation with contemporary ‘conventional’ strands of exegesis and
the question of genealogy and originality. Concerning the first issue,
we position ourselves in the historicist and constructivist approach to
mysticism, as posed by Steven Katz in his series of essays.5 Along the
lines of his approach we argue that to make sense of the Sufi commen-
taries a mere description of the individual authors’ ideas and systems
of thought does not suffice. One has to take into account the broader
milieu in which these texts were written and read, and analyse the
genealogy of their ideas and systems of thought. Sufi authors did not
operate in a vacuum and Sufism does not transcend, nor is separable
from, the broader religious tradition from which it emerged. Thus
these authors and texts can be properly understood only within their
wider religious and historical contexts. By juxtaposing the themes
discussed in Sufi Qurʾan commentaries with other, contemporane-
ous, traditionist and theological narratives in ‘conventional’ works of
tafsīr, we can reach a better understanding of the relation between
Sufism and its broader religious tradition, and how they mutually
influenced each other. Our interest in the issue of genealogy and origi-
nality is driven by claims in recent scholarship that the genre of tafsīr
is essentially genealogical and conservative in nature: a commentator
would only carefully express his own opinions against the backdrop
of earlier traditions and opinions.6 Whether this notion of geneal-
ogy can equally be applied to Sufi tafsīrs is still to be considered;
it conflicts with the general perception of Sufi hermeneutics being
determined by ‘experience’, which suggests higher levels of subjectiv-
ity and originality. The question is to what extent does the genre of
Sufi tafsīr carry the same genealogical characteristics as other, more
conventional, genres of tafsīr, and did such Sufi readings of the Qurʾan
indeed result in more subjective and ‘original’ commentaries on the
Qurʾanic text?
The academic study of Sufi works of tafsīr is important for another,
more general, reason. To date there has been no academic work avail-
able that maps the genre of tafsīr in all its aspects, nor one that depicts
a longue durée history of tafsīr through the centuries. Goldziher’s pio-

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 introduction | 5

neering endeavour in this field evidently deserves mention, and is

impressive considering the limited amount of works available to him
in his age, but it is outdated in many respects. Much has changed in
the field and his Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung cannot
count as a proper history or overview. This field is in dire need of a
new standard work.7
For a comprehensive understanding of the history of tafsīr we are,
therefore, dependent not only on the various single studies produced
by scholars in Western academic contexts, but also on the modern
and contemporary works of Muslim authors writing from a specific
normative background. These works are often influenced by ideologi-
cal selections and categorisations, in which Sufi works of tafsīr do not
always have a place as a matter of course.8 Our dependence on these
works is problematic and leaves us at risk of developing an implicitly
normative and reductionist view of the history of the genre, often
a normativity which leaves Sufism out of the picture. To achieve a
complete, non-ideological and non-reductionist understanding of the
history of the genre in the future – one that pays proper attention to
its inner dynamics and diversity ­– it is necessary to develop a good
appreciation of the place of Sufi Qurʾan commentaries within this his-
tory. Ultimately, this research hopes to contribute to the history of
this subgenre of tafsīr literature, thus giving it its proper place within
the larger history of tafsīr that still remains to be written.
The importance of studying Sufi eschatology should also be
explained in broader conceptual terms. A study of eschatology is not
merely a study of the human imagination. It is also, perhaps even
more so, a study of anthropology; eschatology is not only about what
humans expect will happen in the hereafter, it also influences how
they conceive of their lives in the here: their sense of identity, what
meanings and purposes they ascribe to their lives, how they value
this-worldly life, and ultimately how they structure their lives in the
this-worldly realm. In the case of Sufism, then, eschatology is not only
about what to expect in the hereafter, it is also, perhaps even more
so, about the question of what it means to become a complete human
being (insān kāmil) in this world, and so how to rise in the spiritual

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hierarchy of believers. Sufi imaginations of the hereafter and ideas

on soteriology may thus have very tangible consequences for power
structures and hierarchies in societies in which Sufism plays a signifi-
cant role. Therefore, it is my hope that this study not only proves to
be useful to historians of religion, but that it also provides valuable
historical data for anthropologists. Of course, Sufism is not just an
old tradition found in books, but it is still a lived reality for many
communities worldwide. In this study, the social and political impli-
cations of the eschatological imagination and the spiritual authority
that a claimed this-worldly vision of God provides within religious
communities can only be hinted at, and cannot be delved into more
deeply due to a lack of concrete data. For anthropologists, it may be
worthwhile to look at the practical implications of conceptions of the
hereafter and claims to visions of God in modern Sufi communities.9

The Study of Sufism in its Circles of Influence: Some Notes on

Nomenclature

In the above-mentioned story of Sahl, he tasted the pure drink from

Paradise while performing the night prayer in congregation and
reciting the Qurʾan.10 This embedding of the claimed mystical experi-
ence into a conventional ritual like the congregational prayer and
the intimate relation of the perceived experience to the recital of the
Qurʾan is not a coincidence: it shows that the mystical realm was
considered to be deeply embedded within the teachings and prac-
tices of the broader religious tradition. This may sound obvious to
the modern-day reader, but for a long time this was not considered
self-evident in the academic study of mysticism. In Religious Studies
there has been a vivid debate on the nature of mysticism and its rela-
tion to religious traditions. The study of mysticism has long been
dominated by an essentialist approach that portrays mysticism as
perennial and ahistoric; in this view mysticism transcends prevailing
cultural, intellectual and theological norms, as well as historical and
social influences.11 Moreover, mysticism has often been portrayed as
radically antidogmatic and as a departure from ‘orthodoxy’.12 During
the last three decades this approach has been increasingly contested.

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 introduction | 7

It has been argued that mysticism is in fact highly influenced by its

historical context, that the mystical is always mediated and can be
understood only by taking the broader context into consideration. In
addition, several scholars have argued that mysticism in general is
firmly grounded in the sacred scriptures and languages of its religious
traditions, and much more rooted in ‘orthodoxy’ and determined by
its socioreligious milieu than was generally believed.13 This debate
can be viewed as a continuum, with perennialist universalism at one
end and ‘hard’ constructivism at the other. Different arguments can
be found in between these two poles that try to define a middle way.14
Part of the problem with this decontextualisation of mysti-
cism is the way that the term taṣawwuf is translated into European
languages. It is commonly, but debatably, translated as ‘Sufism’ or
‘Islamic mysticism’.15 While the term ‘Sufism’ as a translation of
taṣawwuf may feel natural, and indeed it is commonly used, it is prob-
lematic to a certain extent. Some have argued that the ‘-ism’ suffix
reifies taṣawwuf as a mystical trend that has an existence separate
from Islam, and not simply a discipline of religious learning within
Islam like kalām or fiqh, albeit with other goals and methods.16 Carl
Ernst, for example, has convincingly shown how this new ‘-ism’ was
introduced by British orientalists of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries in their descriptions of Sufism in order to denote a mystical
trend in the Muslim world that had no intrinsic relation to Islam: ‘The
religious and political imperatives of modern Europe had created the
term, which was duly entered in the list of doctrines and philosophies
deserving the suffix –ism.’17 However, Ernst also notes that it has
become a widely used standard term, whether we like it or not.18 In an
excellent introduction to his global history of Sufism, Nile Green sug-
gests speaking of ‘Sufi Islam’ rather than ‘Sufism’, to stress its rooted-
ness in and entanglement with the broader Islamic tradition. He also
recognises the strong convention of the term Sufism, however, and
ultimately does not break with this convention himself.19 I agree with
these scholars that it is difficult to avoid using the term completely, if
only because using the Arabic equivalent taṣawwuf throughout a book
is tiring for the eyes. The term has become so common and is almost

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 8 | seeing god in sufi qur ʾan commentaries

unavoidable as a descriptive category; it suffices to be conscious of

the term’s conceptual history and not to be lured into the pitfall of
considering this ‘-ism’ as essentially separate from or even in opposi-
tion to Islam, or into other forms of essentialism.
The use of the term ‘mysticism’ is perhaps even more complicated
and needs an even greater awareness of the ideological underpin-
nings of its conceptual history. When we look at the most prominent
introductory handbooks to the study of Sufism, the prominence of the
term ‘mysticism’ immediately catches the eye: Mystical Dimensions
of Islam (Annemarie Schimmel); Mystical Islam: An Introduction to
Sufism (Julian Baldick); Islamic Mysticism: A Short History (Alexander
Knysh).20 Apparently the idea that taṣawwuf is indeed the ‘mystical’
dimension of Islam is quite widespread. However, in recent scholar-
ship on Sufism we can find vivid reflection on whether we do justice to
the tradition of taṣawwuf by applying a term to it that has a conceptual
history in a different tradition.21 This needs deeper reflection. What in
fact do we mean by the term ‘mysticism’ and what is the conceptual
history of this term? What relation to religion and what concept of
religion does it imply? I am interested not so much in whether the
term is an accurate translation (it is not a translation, after all), but
more in how our employment of the term shapes our expectation of
what Sufism is or should be, and what issues it deals with or should
deal with.
Several authors have pointed out how modern perceptions
of the term ‘mysticism’ have been shaped by Protestantism and
the Enlightenment, and thus have ideological presuppositions that
hinder a non-ideological and non-reductionist study of traditions
such as taṣawwuf. For example, Richard King states, ‘The prevailing
attitudes and presuppositions we have about mysticism are culturally
specific and ultimately derive from the philosophical presuppositions
of Western thought since the Enlightenment.’22 King considers the
privatisation of mysticism and the stress on ‘experience’ as typical
for this period. The ‘mystical’ is further juxtaposed with the ‘rational’.
The ‘rational’ governs the public realm, while the ‘mystical’ belongs in
the ‘private’ realm. King states that under influence of Protestantism

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 introduction | 9

and the Enlightenment mysticism becomes decontextualised (and

thus easy to universalise), élitist (‘experience’ only being attainable
by some), antisocial, otherworldly and domesticated (the ‘experience’
is held to be private and not engaged with the world; it does not inter-
fere with the social and political order). This narrowly experiential
and privatised approach to mysticism, so states King,

occludes or suppresses other aspects of the phenomenon of the

mystical that tend to be more important for these figures and the
traditions to which they belong – for example, the ethical dimension
of the mystical, the link between mysticism and the struggle for
authority, or the extent to which the statements and activities of
mystics may relate to issues of politics and social justice.23

Something similar has been argued by Omid Safi in relation to Sufism.

Safi also takes issue with the conceptualisations of mysticism by the
likes of Evelyn Underhill, Margaret Smith and William James, whom
he holds to have had a significant influence on the study of Sufism.24
He too considers them to be the products of a post-Enlightenment,
Protestant world view. His biggest issue with these conceptualisa-
tions is that it seems to leave no space for the interpretation of Sufism
in its broader social context. According to this conception, Sufism is
considered to be a highly personal endeavour that takes place in the
private realm, as does religion in general in the post-Enlightenment
world, and that only focuses on ‘mystical experience’. By forcing such
a conceptualisation of mysticism onto the Sufi tradition, he argues,
one remains stuck in the decontextualised study of individuals who
are perceived to best fit the profile of a ‘true’ mystic looking for a
personal experience of the divine. One comes to deny the deep social
and political implications of Sufism, and the more often communal
and institutionalised than individual character of Sufi devotional
practices.25
This narrow understanding of mysticism, instead of helping us to
give a proper historical analysis of mystical thoughts and expressions,
both on the level of ideas and on their social and political causes and
implications, rather becomes an agent for modern privatised forms of

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spirituality, which within the framework of post-Enlightenment ideas

about religion is considered to be a form of ‘good’, ‘warm’, spiritual
religion in opposition to the ‘bad’, ‘cold’ orthodoxy. It is a confusion
of ‘is’ and ‘ought’: scholars of mysticism project their wish of what
‘true’ mysticism or ‘true’ religion ought to be onto whom they hold to
be exemplary historical figures, who according to them represent the
perennial wisdom and truth of the ideas they wish to propound for
their own time.26
Following this line of criticism, I prefer to avoid use of ‘Islamic
mysticism’ as a direct equivalent for the tradition of taṣawwuf as a
whole. Although the less problematic ‘Sufism’ and ‘Sufi’ are used as
much as possible in this study, it is sometimes unavoidable to indeed
use terms like ‘mysticism’ and ‘mystical’. When this is done, it is
important to realise that taṣawwuf for many Islamic scholars, more
than an overwhelming personal experience, was first and foremost
approached as a discipline of religious knowledge of the self and of
approaching the divine that was bound to rules and restrictions. It
would be more accurate to consider mysticism – in its epistemologi-
cal dimension, such as the concept of maʿrifa (experiential knowl-
edge), and its metaphysical, cosmological and visionary dimensions
(for example, spiritual travels to malakūt and jabarūt), about which
there is no consensus in the Sufi tradition ­– as an aspect of taṣawwuf,
but certainly not its absolute essence. It is true that taṣawwuf from
its very beginning has had many elements that relate to ‘experience’
(in this study, most notably the experience of seeing God), an inner
life and experiential knowledge. However, the concept has histori-
cally entailed much more – ritual, cultivation of good character and
ethics, social organisation, political engagement – and Sufi scholars
themselves have differed throughout history about what has a legiti-
mate place in the science.27 To force a modern understanding onto
taṣawwuf is a distortion of this historical reality.

Sufism and ‘Orthodoxy’: Periphery and Centre?

In line with this historicising and constructivist approach, the rela-

tion of Sufism to Islamic ‘orthodoxy’ becomes problematised as well.

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 introduction | 11

We are concerned not so much with the question of whether Sufism

was historically considered part of orthodoxy or not – no generalised
claims can be made about this ­– but rather with what exactly we mean
by ‘orthodoxy’, and whether this term can be used legitimately within
an Islamic context. As with ‘Sufism’ and ‘mysticism’, scholars of Islam
have vividly reflected on the problems of applying this concept to
an Islamic context.28 Norman Calder has stressed that Islamic ‘ortho-
doxy’ is determined by Islamic scholars in a ‘discursive process, an
ongoing process of interpreting their own past’.29 In addition, Ahmed
El Shamsy has pointed out that ‘orthodoxy’ is a process rather than a
‘thing’, and how this negotiation of (credal) ‘orthodoxy’ in the case of
Islam took place in a social and institutional environment, and was
constructed in a process in which Islamic scholars, political authorities
and even lay believers shared to different extents.30 Brett Wilson has
made an excellent overview of the different uses of the term among
Islamicists, and raises some critical points. He holds that use of the
term ‘orthodoxy’ in Islamic Studies comes from the need to explain
Islam to European and American audiences in terms they are familiar
with from their ‘own’ tradition. This leads to a Procrustean use of the
term, distorting either the term or the tradition to make it fit. This
quest for defining ‘orthodox’ Islam, he states, comes from a quest for
the ‘essence’ of religion, which is in itself problematic. He concludes
that within Islamic Studies there is a lack of clarity over what the term
‘orthodoxy’ means and to what it should be applied; it has been pro-
jected onto legal schools (mostly the Ḥanbalī and Shāfiʿī), theological
schools (Ashʿarī/Māturīdī), Sunni Islam as a whole, non-Sufis, the ahl
al-ḥadīth, the opponents of the philosophers and Muʿtazila, the syn-
thesis of moderate Sufi piety and Ashʿarī theology, the opponents
of reform and Muslim modernism, and so on. Generally, there is a
Jamāʿī-Sunnī bias in the application of the term.31 One can state that all
the above points express concern with certain forms of essentialism
and implicit normativity when determining what is ‘orthodox’ Islam
by Islamicists, and stress that for Muslims themselves the meaning
of what is correct belief and practice has always been and still is con-
stantly negotiated. Both Calder and El Shamsy seem to propagate the

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idea of Islam and its ‘orthodoxy’ as a ‘discursive tradition’, as coined

by Talal Asad, as processual and as a network of power.32
One may then ask, as Wilson does, why we still use the term ‘ortho-
doxy’ at all? What is the term’s function when it has been stripped of
its original, essentialist and normative meaning and has been ‘anthro-
pologised’? It may be worthwhile investigating whether it is possible
to describe the relation of Sufism to the religion perceived as the status
quo in a certain age without mentioning the term ‘orthodox’ at all. The
terms ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ might be helpful in that. What I would
like to argue is that using these terms, as understood by the sociolo-
gist Edward Shils, might be a fruitful way to speak about the relation
between Sufism and the religion propagated and institutionalised by
the ‘centre’ and its institutions, thus avoiding the reductionist and
normative pitfalls of the term ‘orthodoxy’.33 For Shils the centre is
not primarily a spatial phenomenon, but one of ‘the centre of the
order of symbols, of values and beliefs, which govern the society’.34
These are embodied and propounded by the activities of institutions
and organisations, which in their turn are governed by an authority,
by elites which see themselves as the custodians of society’s sacred
norms. The values and beliefs that these elites pursue through these
institutions are what Shils calls the ‘central value system’.35
Therefore, to understand the relation of Sufism to the ‘orthodoxy’
of the age, it may be more rewarding to drop the term ‘orthodoxy’ com-
pletely and instead scrutinise the relation of the particular Sufi author
to the ‘centre’ and its values and institutions. This implies a move
from a pure descriptive history of ideas to a historical­–­sociological
analysis of these texts and ideas, a contextual reading of Sufi ideas
against the backdrop of the ideas propounded by other intellectual
disciplines and their sociohistorical contexts. The texts containing the
ideas should be read within their broader confluent circles of influ-
ence; not only should the author and his intellectual environment be
taken into account, but other contemporaneous intellectual environ-
ments and the broader social and political environments all have their
influence on the ideas and the ways in which they are captured in a
text.36

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 introduction | 13

Although this study is primarily a text-based history of ideas, and

thus closest to the authors’ inner circles, other circles of influence
can be found in the background throughout the study. For example,
as we shall see, Sufi conceptions of the hereafter served to establish
and confirm spiritual hierarchies. These hierarchies had tangible
sociopolitical causes and consequences.37 Dealing with as much as
five authors unfortunately limits the depth of the analysis of these
outer circles. It is mainly in the second chapter that we hope to shed
light on the broader circles of influence for each individual author and
to determine how close they were to the ‘centre’ and its institutions.

History and Eschatology in Early Sufism

Not much is written on Sufi eschatology from a synchronic and dia-

chronic perspective. The only two monographs that have devoted
a specific chapter to Sufi conceptions of the hereafter are Soubhi
El-Saleh’s La vie future selon le Coran and Christian R. Lange’s Paradise
and Hell in Islam.38 El-Saleh, on the one hand, structures his overview
around four historical periods and is mostly interested in the ques-
tion of how Sufis conceived of the nature of punishment and reward
in the hereafter, especially whether they recognised its concrete
outward character as described in the Qurʾan. On the other hand,
Lange discerns six distinct synchronic attitudes towards the here-
after. He identifies these with three different trends within Sufism,
not necessarily bound to specific historical periods.39 Both studies
are largely based on non-tafsīr sources. However, these sources from
Sufism’s formative and classical periods do not show a strong interest
in the hereafter. As El-Saleh and Lange have also noted, the theme
of love and longing for God had largely superseded the occupation
with Paradise and Hell in Sufi imaginations from the third/ninth cen-
tury onwards, which led to a disregard for issues pertaining to the
hereafter.40 Consequently, well-known handbooks from the likes of
al-Sarrāj (d. 378/988), Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 386/996), al-Qushayrī
(d. 465/1072) and al-Hujwīrī (d. 465/1072­–469/1077) do not con-
tain separate sections on issues pertaining to the hereafter.41 It is
therefore not easy to precisely reconstruct Sufi conceptions of the

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 14 | seeing god in sufi qur ʾan commentaries

hereafter based only on these sources. It is here that a close read-

ing of Sufi Qurʾan commentaries may prove to be rewarding. Since a
significant number of verses in the Qurʾan deal with Paradise and Hell,
one may also expect that a significant portion of commentary reflects
upon them from a Sufi perspective. It is therefore hoped that a careful
reading of our sources will shed new light on, or at least add extra
details to, the valuable studies of El-Saleh and Lange.
Lange describes the Islamic conception of the relation between
dunyā and ākhira in two modes: a diachronic mode and a synchronic
mode. The diachronic mode takes the fall from the primordial Paradise
and the banishment to dunyā as the starting point of history. With the
Day of Judgement history will come to an end and be replaced by
ākhira, the domain of recompense in Paradise and Hell. This structure
thus has a linear conception of history as its basis. The synchronic
mode that Lange describes is interested not so much in the linear
understanding of dunyā and ākhira, but rather in an immanent as
well as imminent conception of the otherworld: ‘There is a continuum
between the two, a relationship of synchronity, in the Jungian sense
of a meaningful coincidence.’42 Paradise and Hell do not only coexist
with this world, states Lange, they are ‘everywhen’, and may thus also
immanently appear within this world.43
In the case of Sufism, I propose a combination of these two modes:
while a linear understanding of history and eschatology remains
integral to Sufi theories, the otherworld may also be synchronically
immanent in this world, most poignantly in the form of certain Sufi
stations and states. For example, Karamustafa defines the grander
eschatological scheme of Baghdadi Sufism as determined by proxim-
ity to God. According to this scheme, all humans experienced this
proximity to God during the audience at the primordial covenant
(Q 7:172), with the promise that this proximity would become even
more intimate in Paradise. During this-worldly life, this sense of prox-
imity is principally lost. However, it can be preserved and renewed
during this-worldly life by living in constant recognition of God. The
ultimate goal of Sufi training and the cultivation of an inner life is the
reactualisation and reattainment of this proximity to God.44 The state

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 introduction
Figure 1.1. Eschatological scheme | 15
of Baghdadi Sufism

Figure 1.1 Eschatological scheme of Baghdadi Sufism

of the primordial covenant – and of Paradise ­– can thus be reattained

in the inner constitution of the Sufi. Figure 1.1 shows a visualisation
of this scheme.
Böwering has distilled a similar scheme from the works of Sahl
al-Tustarī (d. 283/896). This-worldly life according to Sahl, states
Böwering,

finds its God-oriented motivation in the reactualization of the Day

of Covenant ( yaum al-mītāq) and is driven in its tendency towards
the anticipatory integration of the Day of Resurrection ( yaum
al-qiyāma). Both ‘Days’ fall outside the phenomenal existence of man
and lie within the realm of man’s pre-existence and post-existence
in the very presence of God.45

This scheme also takes the primordial covenant as a starting point.

Böwering defines this ‘Day of Covenant’ as pre-existential infinity
(ibtidāʾ). On this day humankind professed the oneness of God and
confessed His Lordship (rubūbiyya). The ultimate return after ‘phe-
nomenal existence’ is to ‘post-existential infinity’ (intihāʾ). On the Day
of Resurrection humans are reintegrated into the lasting presence of
the Real, that is God (ḥaqq). Humanity has an encounter with God (liqāʾ
al-ḥaqq), exists in His permanence (al-baqāʾ maʿ al-ḥaqq) and has a
visual perception of God (al-naẓar ilā al-ḥaqq). During this-worldly
life, we try to reach these moments by travelling the mystical path,
thus overcoming our lower selves (nafs) in favour of our hearts (qalb).
The reactualisation of the Day of the Covenant happens by means
of experiential knowledge of God (maʿrifa). The Day of Resurrection
is anticipated in the experiences of unveiling (mukāshafa), visual

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 16 | seeing god in sufi qur ʾan commentaries

beholding (muʿāyana) and contemplative witnessing (mushāhada)

of the realities of faith.46 It is thus in the mystical moment that this-
worldly life is temporarily transcended and that a foretaste of states
from the world to come can be attained.
The conceived meta-structures of both Karamustafa and Böwering
hint at a form of boundary crossing from this world to the otherworld
during this-worldly life. In the mystical moment, by attaining a mysti-
cal state, the same state as that of pre-existence can be experienced,
as well as that of the hereafter. The mystic either temporarily crosses
the boundary from this world to the otherworld, or an otherworldly
reality temporarily bursts into this world. It is this notion of bound-
ary crossing through Sufi stations and states that I hold to be typical,
though not universal, in Sufi conceptions of the relation between this
world and the otherworld during the period of our interest. It is also
this meta-structure which shapes this study, albeit with some slight
modifications.

What is a ‘Sufi’ Qurʾan Commentary? Defining the Genre

In his article ‘Mysticism and the Interpretation of Sacred Scripture’,

Steven Katz points out how the decontextualising attitude towards
mysticism in most extant scholarly literature has led to ‘a nearly uni-
form neglect of the significance of sacred scriptures’.47 This strong
claim cannot equally be made for the study of the Qurʾan in relation
to Sufism. Pioneers in the study of Sufism such as Louis Massignon
and Paul Nwyia have indeed paid substantive attention to the role of
the Qurʾan in the shaping of Sufism and its technical terms, arguing
that the Qurʾan itself formed the basis of this religious discipline.48 A
fair amount of attention has also been paid to the appropriation and
use of the Qurʾan in Sufism, going as far back as Ignaz Goldziher’s Die
Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung.49 He was the first to write
about mystical exegesis as a distinct approach within the discipline of
Qurʾanic exegesis. He defines mystical exegesis quite broadly, broader
than one would do in the present, to even include the appropriation of
the Qurʾan by the Neoplatonic Ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ (Brethren of Purity). To
Goldziher, Sufism and ‘der ursprüngliche, traditionelle Islam’ are in

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 introduction | 17

radical opposition to each other.50 Contrary to Nwyia and Massignon,

in this way he suggests that Sufi approaches to the Qurʾan are a form
of eisegesis: Sufi ideas do not emerge from the reading of the Qurʾan,
they are often even in opposition to its text. They come into existence
independently of the Qurʾan, or have foreign origins, and are only later
read into it. He states that Sufis therefore needed to apply allegorical
reading to the Qurʾan to find a way to relate their ideas to it. Besides
the Ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ, Goldziher is mainly concerned with the views
of ‘major’ Sufi figures like Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) and
Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) on allegorical exegesis and the use of the
Qurʾan in their works. He does not pay specific attention to purposely
written Qurʾan commentaries, as is done in this study.51
The idea of a separate Sufi genre of tafsīr seems to be a modern
invention. Premodern Muslim biographical encyclopaedias on exegetes
(ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn) do include authors of Sufi commentaries such
as al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021), al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072) and al-Simnānī
(d. 736/1336), but they do not mention a separate ‘genre’ of Sufi tafsīr.
The identity of the authors as Sufis or renunciants is specifically men-
tioned, but is not considered to define their works of tafsīr as such.52
However, a normative judgement is sometimes made on these works.
Al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505), for example, categorised al-Sulamī’s com-
mentary as not being worthy of praise (ghayr maḥmūd) because of its
alleged Ismāʿīlī (bāṭinī) and Qarmatian tendencies.53 Modern Muslim
historians of tafsīr do distinguish a separate Sufi genre within tafsīr.
For example, the most prominent twentieth-century historiography
by al-Dhahabī treats Sufi commentaries on the Qurʾan in a special
chapter.54 He distinguishes between two forms of Sufi tafsīr, the first
by method of speculative philosophy (naẓarī), the second by method
of allusion (ishārī). The first he considers to be a form of eisegesis,
where thoughts that the author has developed independently from
the Qurʾan are read into and forced upon the Qurʾanic text. The second
he defines as: ‘Interpretation of the verses of the Qurʾan differing
from its apparent meaning, in accordance with hidden allusions that
appear to the masters of the path (arbāb al-sulūk). This may be in con-
formity with the intended apparent meanings.’ 55 Among the exegetes

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 18 | seeing god in sufi qur ʾan commentaries

he mentions are al-Tustarī, al-Sulamī, al-Qushayrī and Rūzbihān, all

of whom also figure prominently in our study. The Turkish scholar of
Sufism and tafsīr, Süleyman Ateș, like his Egyptian colleague, consid-
ers the hermeneutical method of allusion (ishāra) to be the common
denominator for the Sufi genre; he speaks of a school of ishārī tafsīr
(işârî tefsîr okulu) and includes this study’s authors in his overview,
with the exception of al-Daylamī.56
The academic study of Sufi Qurʾan commentaries seems to have
followed this modern Muslim tendency to define the genre accord-
ing to their hermeneutical methods: a commentary is considered to
be ‘Sufi’ when it refers to terms like ‘allusion’ (ishāra), ‘unveiling’
(kashf ), and ‘inward’ (bāṭin) to describe its method of interpreta-
tion. Alan Godlas, like Ateș, speaks of a genre of ishārī tafsīr, or tafsīr
bi’l-ishāra. According to Godlas, what all of these commentaries have
in common, despite large differences in style and content, is that the
interpretative method involves an element of ‘unveiling’ (kashf ) and
is thus experiential. The ‘unveiled’ meanings of the verses mostly
relate to Sufi practice and doctrines, and the authors did not consider
them to negate the apparent meanings of the Qurʾanic text. He places
the commentaries in his overview on a continuum of ‘moderate’ and
‘esoteric’ works, the ‘moderate’ ones being works that also include
exoteric forms of exegesis.57 Kristin Zahra Sands also upholds the idea
of a genre defined by a shared set of hermeneutical assumptions and
elements that can be characterised as ‘Sufi’. She argues that these
works can legitimately be considered a subgenre of tafsīr because
‘they follow the lemma and comment format of tafsīr, and address the
Qurʾān in a sequential, even if in a more selective manner’.58 She does
make it clear that Sufi authors themselves hardly ever self-defined as
Sufis and preferred to label themselves as, for example, ‘the people of
allusion and understanding’ (ahl al-ishāra wa’l-fahm), ‘the people of
meanings’ (ahl al-maʿānī) or ‘the people of love’ (ahl al-ʿishq).59 More
recently, Jamal Elias has taken a critical stance against the notion of
a ‘genre’ of Sufi tafsīr. His main objection to the notion of a separate
genre is that Sufi commentaries on the Qurʾan, according to him, ‘lack
a shared structure or identifiable set of concerns that distinguish them

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 introduction | 19

from the wider category of tafsīr literature’.60 Moreover, he claims

that the term ‘Sufi’ is not defined properly in relation to tafsīr.
We will come back to this issue of a ‘genre’ of Sufi tafsīr at the
end of Chapter 2. There, after a careful reading of the authors’ own
introductory statements, I propose that it is indeed justified to speak
of a separate ‘genre’ of Sufi tafsīr. The main arguments for this are
that most of our authors refer to the same set of hermeneutical terms
in their introductions and use the same sayings from earlier genera-
tions to legitimise them, and all refer back to the same earlier works
of tafsīr, thus considering themselves part of the same genealogical
tradition.

Using Tafsīr as a Source for Intellectual History: Some Notes on

Method and Sources

The study of tafsīr in general, and Sufi tafsīr in particular, has seen a
remarkable bloom in recent years, to the extent that one can now legit-
imately speak of a discipline of tafsīr studies within Islamic Studies.
While scholarly interest in tafsīr was historically largely determined
by its usability for reconstructing meanings of the Qurʾanic text, there
is now a strong trend for genuine interest in the works of tafsīr them-
selves as a literary genre and their function in their wider historical
contexts.61 In previous scholarship, as Görke and Pink state, ‘commen-
taries on the Qurʾan were usually consulted rather than studied’.62
Although in this study commentaries are indeed also used as consul-
tation for the case study of eschatology and the vision of God, we do
wish to generate new knowledge on the workings of the genre as well:
the works themselves have intrinsic value for our study.
Why use tafsīr as a source for intellectual history? In general,
the Qurʾan has been accepted as the single most important religious
source by all Muslims throughout Islamic history, regardless of sec-
tarian affiliation, region or era. Each of these sectarian affiliations,
regions and eras has produced its own works of tafsīr, reflecting the
most important viewpoints and deliberations on the Qurʾan from
their respective traditions and socioreligious milieus. Each work of
tafsīr represents an accumulated and communal understanding of the

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Qurʾan in a certain time and context.63 It thus ‘may validly be treated

as a window looking into the Islamic Weltanschauung of any given
generation’.64 By making an analysis and comparison of commentar-
ies from our specific period of interest on verses relevant to our case
study, a bird’s-eye view of the historical development of the commen-
tary on the verse in that period is possible.
In this study, one of the main questions is how the notion of tafsīr
as a ‘genealogical’ genre relates to the widely shared idea that Sufi
hermeneutics are ‘experiential’, most notably in the form of allusive
(ishārī) interpretations of the Qurʾan. The claim of an ‘experiential’
reading of the Qurʾan made by Sufi authors, and followed by some aca-
demic scholars, implies a higher level of originality and subjectivity.65
Is it indeed the case that our commentaries have a higher degree of
originality and diversity in their style and content? Do the same rules
of genealogy and tafsīr as an essentially ‘conservative’ genre apply to
this branch? The genre of tafsīr being ‘genealogical’ basically means
that later works draw on earlier works, adapting, refuting, abridging
and modifying the extant material. This seemingly repetitive and non-
innovative characteristic of an ever-growing body of tafsīr literature
is one of the reasons why the academic study of tafsīr has long been
disregarded. However, the potential of precisely this genealogical
character for understanding the identity of the individual author is
increasingly being discovered and explored in more recent studies.
As Norman Calder notes in his classical article ‘Tafsīr from Ṭabarī to
Ibn Kathīr’:

The process of citing authorities and providing multiple readings

is in part a declaration of loyalty: it defines the tradition within
which one works. It is also a means to establish the individuality
or the artistry of a given mufassir: the selection, presentation and
organization of citations constitutes always a process that is unique
to one writer.66

On a similar note McAuliffe states: ‘It is in the very process of selec-

tion, organization, presentation, and assessment of this material from
one’s exegetical predecessors that the individuality and originality of

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 introduction | 21

the particular commentator demonstrates itself.’67 For this reason,

Saleh writes: ‘One cannot study any given Qurʾan commentary in iso-
lation. It has to be seen in conjunction with the tradition that produced
it and the influence it left behind.’68 Following this notion, the study of
a sequence of commentaries as proposed in this study thus not only
gives insight into the interaction between the Sufi commentary and its
peculiar historical circumstances, but also enables one to see how a
specific verse was interpreted in relation to previous commentaries.69
How did the interpretation ‘grow’ within the period? Which sources,
references and technical terms were added or omitted, and what
continuities and changes can be perceived, and why did these occur?
How do they relate to the historical particularities of the author’s era?
When approached with these questions in mind, tafsīr literature may
prove to be a gold mine for a better understanding of the intellectual
history of a certain age.
The scope of this study may look overambitious at first sight, cov-
ering as it does five Qurʾan commentaries authored in a time frame
of no less than two centuries. However, in recent years valuable
monographs have been published on some of these sources, which
make more longue durée studies of the genre, especially with a clear
thematic focus like eschatology, a conceivable enterprise. The body of
literature on Sufi tafsīr is growing steadily, as is the body of available
primary sources. Therefore, I believe it is the right moment to look
beyond a single source or author and attempt instead a bird’s-eye
view of a whole period through a specific case study such as eschatol-
ogy. In Chapter 2 our main authors, their Qurʾan commentaries and
their Sitz im Leben will be discussed. Here we will shortly introduce
them, the sources that are available to us and the possible problems
with the editions. A general problem in the study of Sufi tafsīr is the
lack of critical editions, which in some cases means taking a leap of
faith in trusting the uncritical editions that are available. It is hoped
that the critical editing and publishing of the available manuscripts
will become a larger priority for the field, enabling more meticulous
future studies.70
Our study begins with Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī’s

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(d. 412/1021) Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr and stretches all the way to Rūzbihān
al-Baqlī al-Shīrāzī’s (d. 606/1209) ʿArāʾis al-bayān fī ḥaqāʾiq al-Qurʾān.
It encompasses nearly all of the Sufi commentaries in between these
two that are known to us as integral texts: Abū’l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī’s
(d. 465/1072) Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt, Rashīd al-Dīn Maybudī’s (fl. second
half of the fifth/eleventh to first half of the sixth/twelfth century)
Kashf al-asrār wa-ʿuddat al-abrār and Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī’s (d.
587/1191?) Taṣdīq al-maʿārif.71 Most of these sources are authored by
relatively well-known and well-studied figures in the history of Sufism,
who are generally recognised as important figures in the ‘formative’
and ‘classical’ periods of Sufism. Their commentaries have appeared
in at least one or more editions (unfortunately mostly uncritical edi-
tions) and have provoked some scholarly interest. Al-Sulamī is widely
recognised as an important collector and compiler at the end of the
formative period. Several of his works have been critically edited,
among which is his minor Qurʾan commentary, the Ziyādāt Ḥaqāʾiq
al-tafsīr.72 A critical edition of his major Qurʾan commentary is in prep-
aration and an uncritical edition is available.73 In addition, al-Qushayrī
and his Qurʾan commentary have seen warm scholarly interest. There
are two uncritical editions available of his Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt, as well
as a monograph on this tafsīr.74 On the life of Maybudī (d. early sixth/
twelfth century) and his non-tafsīr works precious little is known,
and very few studies are available. His voluminous Qurʾan commen-
tary has appeared in several printed editions, and has mainly been
studied by Annabel Keeler.75 The life and works of Rūzbihān al-Baqlī
are relatively well studied, several critical editions of his texts and
monographs being available.76 His ʿArāʾis al-bayān fī ḥaqāʾiq al-Qurʾān
is still awaiting a critical edition, but has been published uncritically.77
The exception to this relatively developed scholarly interest is
Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī and his Qurʾan commentary. There is hardly
any biographical information available, and none of his works have
been critically edited and published thus far. Furthermore, for his
tafsīr we have to rely on manuscripts.78 He may be considered a minor
figure in the history of Sufism. He has certainly not made it into the
canon of great Sufi figures, neither in the biographical writings of

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 introduction | 23

the Sufi tradition that he himself was part of, nor in the contempo-
rary academic study of Sufism.79 Still, it is worthwhile including him
and his commentary in this study. Making minor figures part of one’s
endeavour to understand the history of ideas in a certain era may
very well help to elucidate the broader intellectual contexts in which
the grander names flourished. One should understand not only the
pinnacles of higher culture to understand the thought of a certain era,
but also those we have come to consider as lesser figures.80

Structure of the Work

The structure of this study is inspired by the perceived eschatological

metanarratives discussed above, with some adjustments. In line with
the themes of proximity and experiential knowledge that are central
to the boundary crossings that Karamustafa and Böwering perceive,
we take the vision of God as the main eschatological theme for the
boundary crossing from this world to the otherworld. We consider
the vision (ruʾya) of God in the hereafter, together with the meeting
(liqāʾ) and nearness (qurb) of Him to be the most dominant in Sufi
descriptions of the hereafter.
The narrative that structures our study does not necessarily
appear as such in all of the commentaries explicitly, nor is it nec-
essarily present implicitly. As we shall see, the commentaries differ
significantly in their modes of Sufi thought, and not all authors attach
the same value to the themes of nearness and vision. Although this
structure can be found in some works, it in the first place serves as
an analytical tool and narrative structure. We feel that it delivers a
suitable larger narrative for the themes of our interest. It also serves
well to locate the major differences of the authors in their approaches
to Sufism. The structure depicts four (attempted) crossings of the
boundary between this world and the otherworld. It begins with
the banishment of Adam from Paradise, continues with attempts by
Moses and Muhammad to reattain the vision of God, and ends with
the final crossing after the Day of Judgement. My proposed structure
is visualised as seen in Figure 1.2.
To be able to tackle the main themes of the study it is necessary

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 24 | seeing god in sufi qur ʾan commentaries

Figure 1.2 Eschatological structure and crossings of the prophets

to first be properly aware of the historical background of the authors

in the Islamic Earlier Middle Period in Persia, and to come to a more
intimate knowledge of the source material we are working with;
they have to be placed within their circles of influence. In Chapter 2,
therefore, we first discuss the historical background to the rise of Sufi
commentaries of the Qurʾan in Nishapur in the fifth/eleventh century,
based largely on secondary literature. After that, we chronologically
introduce the five authors that are central to this study. After high-
lighting the most important facts from their biographies and plac-
ing them within their broader circles of influence, we discuss their
tafsīr works and the hermeneutical practices that they proposed and
defended in those works. Based on this analysis, we conclude that it
is indeed legitimate to consider these works as part of a ‘genre’ of Sufi
tafsīr that takes al-Sulamī’s tafsīr as its collective reference point.
For our case study of Sufi eschatology, we consider it most appro-
priate for understanding the larger narrative to begin with the end in
mind. Chapter 3, therefore, first deals with the theme of ‘the ultimate
boundary crossing’ from this world to the otherworld in Sufism. We
conclude that the most dominant themes are indeed nearness to God
in the hereafter, the meeting with Him and the vision of Him. This gen-
eral conclusion does not result from being selective with the source
material to ‘argue’ for this specific point. We aim to sketch as complete

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 introduction | 25

a picture as possible of the conceptions of the hereafter found in the

five main Sufi Qurʾan commentaries. Therefore, this chapter is rather
descriptive and inclusive. We consider this to be justified, since this is
the first in-depth study of these sources on this particular theme, and
the findings may prove to be relevant for future research on the topic
of Sufism and the hereafter.
After having covered the ‘ultimate boundary crossing’ and having
established the God-centredness and focus on nearness and vision of
the Sufi hereafter, in Chapter 4 we concentrate on discussions of the
first boundary crossing: Adam’s banishment from Paradise. Instead
of the primordial covenant that Böwering and Karamustafa take as
the anchor point of Sufi imaginations, our interest is in the role played
by the loss of the primordial Paradise in Sufi eschatology. First, we
consider why Adam had to be banished, according to our authors: how
did they interpret the story to fit within God’s larger (eschatological)
plan for humankind, and how did they deal with the questions of pre-
destination and theodicy related to it? Second, we try to understand
what exactly our authors held to have been ‘lost’ by the banishment:
what constitutes the yearning for Paradise in this-worldly life? What
did Sufis hope might be regained? Is it indeed the typical Sufi eschato-
logical themes of nearness to and vision of God?
After discussing the final and then the first boundary crossings,
which together form the first part of our case studies, Chapter 5
offers an excursion into theoretical debates on otherworldly and this-
worldly visions of God in theology and Sufism, before moving on to
the second part, which considers two prophetic case studies of vision-
ary crossings from this world to the otherworld. This is important to
adequately contextualise and appreciate the discussions on the vision
of God in the following two chapters. After presenting an overview of
theological positions on the vision of God and their main arguments,
we analyse the positions of our study’s Sufi authors on this specific
issue through a reading of their non-tafsīr works.
Chapter 6 focuses on the discussions in our Qurʾan commentaries
about Moses’s request to see God (Q 7:143). We argue that within some
Sufi understandings this story signifies an attempt to ­temporarily

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restore a paradisiacal state of constant vision in this world; the yearn-

ing for the vision of God promised in Paradise was so strong that they
looked for ways to have a similar experience in the earthly abode. As
we shall see, for some this took the form of a visionary encounter, a
foretaste of what was to come in the hereafter.
In Chapter 7, another prophetic model of travelling to the oth-
erworld and experiencing the vision of God is scrutinised. We dis-
cuss the commentaries on the first eighteen verses of Sūrat al-Najm,
which exegetes have generally identified with the heavenly journey
of Muhammad. We pay particular attention to a couple of verses
that address a visionary meeting between two unidentified entities.
Finally, we discuss whether our commentators considered this to be
Muhammad’s vision of God and, if so, which modalities of vision they
proposed, before arriving at a number of important conclusions in
Chapter 8.

Notes
1 Sahl al-Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Tustarī, trans. Annabel Keeler and Ali Keeler
(Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2011), 260.
2 Ibid., 15.
3 Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a
World Civilization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 2:6–7.
4 Christian R. Lange, Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2015), 11–12.
5 Steven T. Katz, ‘The “Conservative” Character of Mysticism’, in
Mysticism and Religious Traditions, ed. Steven T. Katz (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1983), 3–60; Steven T. Katz, ‘Mysticism and the
Interpretation of Sacred Scripture’, in Mysticism and Sacred Scripture,
ed. Steven T. Katz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 7–67; cf.
Niklaus Largier, ‘Mysticism, Modernity and the Invention of Aesthetic
Experience’, Representations 105, no. 1 (2009): 37–60; Elliot R. Wolfson,
Through a Speculum that Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval
Jewish Mysticism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997),
52–8.
6 Walid Saleh, The Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition: The Qurʾān
Commentary of al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035) (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 9, 14–15;

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 introduction | 27

Jane D. McAuliffe, Qurʾānic Christians: An Analysis of Classical and Modern

Exegesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 291.
7 Ignaz Goldziher, Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung: an
der Universität Upsala gehaltene Olaus-Petri-Vorlesungen (Leiden: Brill,
1970). This was already noted by Andrew Rippin in 1982: ‘One of the
surprising elements in tafsīr studies is that we still lack a general intro-
duction to the genre as a whole . . . The other point which needs attention
is the production of a historical synthesis of Islamic exegesis to finally
replace Goldziher’s Richtungen.’ Andrew Rippin, ‘The Present Status of
Tafsīr Studies’, The Muslim World 72, nos 3–4 (1982): 237–8. Three dec-
ades later, the same still holds true, although many more publications on
the subject of tafsīr are available.
8 Walid Saleh has convincingly shown how normative and ideological
choices play an important role in the selections and representations
made in modern historiographies of tafsīr from the Arab and Muslim
worlds, and how this influences the categorisations and conceptual
frameworks utilised in the academic study of the genre. He has also
pointed out how ideological choices in the printing of works of tafsīr at
the time of the rise of the printing press in the Arab world has distorted
our understanding of the history of the genre. Walid Saleh, ‘Preliminary
Remarks on the Historiography of Tafsīr in Arabic: A History of the Book
Approach’, JQS 12 (2010): 6–11.
9 A good recent example of this is Benedikt Pontzen, who has researched
claims of seeing God and the construction of spiritual authority among
the Tijaniyya in Asante, Ghana. Benedikt Pontzen, ‘On ‘Seeing God’ and
its Ambiguities: Religious Claims and Counterclaims among Muslims in
Asante, Ghana’ (unpublished paper, 2015).
10 Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Tustarī (trans. Keeler and Keeler), 260.
11 Seyyed H. Nasr, for example, gives one of his chapters the subtitle
‘Reflections on the Manifestation of Sufism in Time and Space’, stat-
ing in that chapter that ‘it is necessary to recall how important it is to
escape the entrapment of historicism in order to understand a reality
that transcends time and history’. Sufism is here portrayed as having
a reified perennial existence; it is not determined by history, its real-
ity transcends history and merely manifests itself differently within the
particularities of a certain age. Its essence perennially remains the same
in this conception. Seyyed H. Nasr, The Garden of Truth: The Vision and

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 28 | seeing god in sufi qur ʾan commentaries

Promise of Sufism, Islam’s Mystical Tradition (New York: Harper One,

2007), 164.
12 For an overview, typology and criticism of such approaches, see ER2, s.v.
‘Mysticism [Further Considerations]’, by Peter Moore, 4:6355–9.
13 Katz, Mysticism and Sacred Scripture; Katz, Mysticism and Religious
Traditions; Steven T. Katz, ed., Mysticism and Language (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1992); Richard King, Orientalism and Religion:
Postcolonial Theory, India and ‘The Mystic East’ (London and New York:
Routledge, 1999).
14 For a typology and some examples of these middle ways, see Jerome
Gellman, ‘Mysticism’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring
2014 edition, ed. Edward N. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/
spr2014/entries/mysticism (accessed 1 February 2015); Wolfson,
Speculum, 52–8.
15 The issue of translating the technical vocabulary of Sufis reaches further
than this term. When working with Sufi texts one is confronted with the
problem that often equivalents from (the study of) Christian mysticism
are used, concepts and terms that have their own genealogies within
a different religious tradition (e.g. ‘saints’ being used for awliyāʾ). In
this study, such equivalents are avoided as much as possible. We have
tried to stay as close as possible to the literal Arabic meanings. See Sara
Sviri, ‘Sufism: Reconsidering Terms, Definitions and Processes in the
Formative Period of Islamic Mysticism’, in Les maîtres soufis et leurs
disciples. IIIe–Ve siècles de l’hégire (IXe–XIe s.). Enseignement, forma-
tion et transmission, eds Geneviève Gobillot and Jean-Jacques Thibon
(Beirut: Institut français du Proche-Orient, 2012), 17–34; Barbara R. von
Schlegell, ‘Translating Sufism’, JAOS 122, no. 3 (2002): 578–86.
16 This can perhaps be felt more strongly in the German ‘translation’ of
taṣawwuf used by Richard Gramlich. He uses the suffix ‘-tum’, which
evokes the association of a ‘Sufitum’ as a religion besides ‘Judentum’ and
‘Christentum’. Richard Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder des Sufitums (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz Verlag, 1995–6).
17 Carl W. Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism: An Essential Introduction
to the Philosophy and Practice of the Mystical Tradition of Islam (Boston,
MA: Shambhala Publications, 1997), 16. Linda Sijbrand has pointed out
that these orientalists did not form their ideas on Sufism in a vacuum,
and were influenced by anti-Sufi tendencies within the Islamic world

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 introduction | 29

itself that also considered Sufism to be outside the realm of Islam.

Linda Sijbrand, ‘Orientalism and Sufism: An Overview’, in Orientalism
Revisited: Art, Land and Voyage, ed. Ian R. Netton (London: Routledge,
2013), 98–114.
18 Ernst, Shambhala Guide to Sufism, 18–19.
19 Nile Green, Sufism: A Global History (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012),
8.
20 Julian Baldick, Mystical Islam: An Introduction to Sufism (London:
I. B. Tauris, 1989); Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam
(Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1975); Alexander D.
Knysh, Islamic Mysticism: A Short History (Leiden: Brill, 2000).
21 See Sviri, ‘Reconsidering Terms’; Ernst, Shambhala Guide to Sufism, 1–31.
22 King, Orientalism and Religion, 34.
23 Ibid., 24.
24 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York:
Longmans Green, 1902); Margaret Smith, An Introduction to Mysticism
(London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1931); Evelyn
Underhill, Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man’s
Spiritual Consciousness (London: Methuen, 1911). Safi sees this type
of thought on mysticism represented in, among others, Annemarie
Schimmel’s Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Omid Safi, ‘Bargaining with
Baraka: Persian Sufism, “Mysticism”, and Pre-Modern Politics’, The
Muslim World 90 (2000): 260–3.
25 Safi, ‘Bargaining with Baraka’, 260–3. Fairness requires one to mention
that this decontextualising essentialist approach, although certainly
present, has never been the only dominant approach in the study of
Sufism, and that generally speaking proper historical and philological
studies have been present in the study of Sufism from very early on, even
before the criticism of Katz and his like. See Ahmet Karamustafa, Sufism:
The Formative Period (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007),
vii–viii. In recent years especially, more and more valuable historicising
work has been done. An excellent recent example is John J. Curry and
Erik S. Ohlander, eds, Sufism and Society: Arrangements of the Mystical in
the Muslim World, 1200–1800 (London and New York: Routledge, 2012).
26 Also Bernd Radtke, in a polemical and sometimes slightly unfair article,
takes issue with what he holds to be the ‘suppression’ and ‘projection’
of Sufism by Western scholars. He states that the ‘long-lived cliché that

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Sufism is in opposition to the Law’ is an attempt by scholars of Sufism,

whom he describes as ‘the convinced, the believers’ (in ‘mysticism’, that
is), to create a ‘warmer Islam’ for those who tend to find orthodoxy
unsympathetic. Radtke stresses how deeply Sufism is actually rooted
within Islamic tradition, and from its very early beginnings was an
‘orthodox’ movement. He accuses scholars of Sufism of suppressing the
textual evidence to the relation of Sufism with this ‘colder’ Islam. The
‘projection’ lies in their tendency to read their own expectations and
aspirations into their object of study. He holds that conviction is more
important to them than scholarly knowledge. Bernd Radtke, ‘Between
Projection and Suppression: Some Considerations Concerning the
Study of Sufism’, in Shīʿa Islam, Sects and Sufism: Historical Dimensions,
Religious Practice and Methodological Considerations, ed. Frederick de
Jong (Utrecht: M. Th. Houtsma Stichting, 1992), 70–82. See also Bernd
Radtke, ‘Warum ist der Sufi orthodox?’, Der Islam 71, no. 2 (1994):
302–7.
27 See Ovamir Anjum, ‘Sufism without Mysticism? Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s
Objectives in Madārij al-sālikīn’, in A Scholar in the Shadow: Essays in the
Legal and Theological Thought of Ibn Qayyim al-Ğawziyyah, edited by
Caterina Bori and Livnat Holzman, Oriente Moderno monograph series
90, no. 1 (Rome: Istituto per l’Oriente, 2010), 161–88.
28 See Brett Wilson, ‘The Failure of Nomenclature: The Concept of
“Orthodoxy” in the Study of Islam’, Comparative Islamic Studies 3, no. 2
(2007): 169–94; Norman Calder, ‘The Limits of Islamic Orthodoxy’, in
Defining Islam: A Reader, ed. Andrew Rippin (London: Equinox, 2007),
222–36; Ahmed El Shamsy, ‘The Social Construction of Orthodoxy’, in
The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology, ed. Tim Winter
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 97–117; Alexander
Knysh, ‘“Orthodoxy” and “Heresy” in Medieval Islam: An Essay in
Reassessment’, The Muslim World 83, no. 1 (1993): 48–67; Robert Langer
and Udo Simon, ‘The Dynamics of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Dealing
with Divergence in Muslim Discourses and Islamic Studies’, Die Welt des
Islams 48, nos 3–4 (2008): 273–88; Bernard Lewis, ‘Some Observations
on the Significance of Heresy in the History of Islam’, SI 1 (1953): 43–63.
29 Calder, ‘Limits of Islamic Orthodoxy’, 224.
30 El Shamsy, ‘Social Construction of Orthodoxy’, 97.
31 Wilson, ‘Failure of Nomenclature’, 169–94.

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 introduction | 31

32 ‘An Islamic discursive tradition is simply a tradition of Muslim discourse

that addresses itself to conceptions of the Islamic past and future,
with reference to a particular Islamic practice in the present.’ Talal
Asad, The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam (Washington, DC: Center for
Contemporary Arab Studies, 1986), 14. Wilson explicitly discusses Talal
Asad’s idea on orthodoxy in the light of his idea that Islam has a discur-
sive tradition. For Asad, states Wilson, ‘orthodox appears to be a purely
sociological concept which simply means “conventional,” “established,”
or “correct” for a particular context, its configuration of power, and its
current understanding of the discursive tradition’. Wilson himself is
critical of this approach. Wilson, ‘Failure of Nomenclature’, 185.
33 Edward Shils, ‘Centre and Periphery’, in The Logic of Personal Knowledge:
Essays Presented to Michael Polanyi, ed. Polanyi Festschrift Committee
(London: Routledge/Kegan Paul, 1961), 117–30.
34 Ibid., 117.
35 Ibid., 117.
36 For a good overview of the relation of ‘classical’ Sufism to its sociopoliti-
cal context, see Ovamir Anjum, ‘Mystical Authority and Governmentality
in Medieval Islam’, in Sufism and Society: Arrangements of the Mystical
in the Muslim World, 1200–1800, eds John J. Curry and Erik S. Ohlander
(London and New York: Routledge, 2012), 71–93.
37 Ibid.
38 Soubhi El-Saleh, La vie future selon le Coran (Paris: J. Vrin, 1971); Lange,
Paradise and Hell. There are only two other monographs on Islamic
eschatology to date. Neither touches upon Sufism at all. Nerina Rustomji,
The Garden and the Fire: Heaven and Hell in Islamic Culture (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2008); Jane I. Smith and Yvonne Y. Haddad,
The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection (Albany, NY: SUNY
Press, 1981). The monograph by Lange promises to be the determining
work on Islamic eschatology for years to come, and to supersede the
former studies in analytical depth and in the range of material studied.
For an overview of the earlier works on Islamic eschatology, see Lange,
Paradise and Hell, 24–31.
39 In Chapter 3, we further discuss the value of these contributions as an
analytical tool to understanding our source material.
40 El-Saleh, Vie future, 97–102; Lange, Paradise and Hell, 225–31. See also
Ahmet Karamustafa, ‘Eschatology in Early Sufi Thought’, paper delivered

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 32 | seeing god in sufi qur ʾan commentaries

at the HHIT International Symposium ‘Crossing Boundaries: Mystical

and Philosophical Conceptualizations of the Dunyā/Ākhira Relationship’,
Utrecht University, 5 July 2013, http://vimeo.com/85067251 (accessed
4 January 2015).
41 Some exceptions deserve to be mentioned. Al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī’s (d.
243/857) Kitāb al-tawahhum deals almost exclusively with eschatology.
Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥārith b. Asad al-Muḥāsibī, Une vision humaine des fins
dernières: le ‘Kitab al-tawahhum’ d’al-Muhasibi, ed. André Roman (Paris:
Klincksieck, 1978). The book on eschatology falsely attributed to Abū
Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), al-Durra al-fākhira fī kashf ʿulūm al-ākhira
is partly based on this work. See Roberto Tottoli, ‘Muslim Eschatological
Literature and Western Studies’, Der Islam 83, no. 2 (2008): 452–77. In
addition, ʿAzīz-i Nasafī ( fl. middle of seventh/thirteenth century) and
Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) showed interest in eschatological topics. See
Christian Lange, ‘A Sufi’s Paradise and Hell: ʿAzīz-i Nasafī’s Epistle on the
Otherworld’, in No Tapping around Philology: A Festschrift in Honor of
Wheeler McIntosh Thackston Jr.’s 70th Birthday, eds Alireza Korangy and
Daniel J. Sheffield (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2014), 197–211;
William C. Chittick, ‘Death and the World of Imagination: Ibn al-ʿArabī’s
Eschatology’, The Muslim World 78, no. 1 (1988): 51–82. While this early
period of Sufism may indeed be described as a period of relative disinter-
est in eschatology, this changes a bit in later periods. In the eighteenth
century, Aḥmad al-Lamaṭī (d. 1156/1743), for example, included special
chapters with descriptions of limbo (barzakh), Paradise and Hell in his
collection of the sayings of Abd al-ʿAzīz al-Dabbāgh (d. 1132/1719). See
Aḥmad b. Mubārak al-Lamaṭī, Pure Gold from the Words of Sayyidī ʿAbd
al-ʿAzīz al-Dabbāgh (Al-Dhahab al-Ibrīz min Kalām Sayyidī ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz
al-Dabbāgh), trans. John O’Kane and Bernd Radtke (Leiden: Brill, 2007).
Also, the seventeenth-century Indian Naqshbandī scholar Aḥmad Sirhindī
reflected on issues of the hereafter in his writings. See Abdollah Vakily,
‘Some Notes on Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī and the Problem of the Mystical
Significance of Paradise’, in Reason and Inspiration in Islam: Theology,
Philosophy and Mysticism in Muslim Thought, ed. Todd Lawson (London:
I. B. Tauris, 2005), 407–17. This indicates that Saleh’s opinion that there
were no worthwhile developments after the seventh/thirteenth century
must be corrected. Saleh, Vie future, 120. A longue durée history of Sufi
conceptions of the hereafter cannot possibly be achieved within the scope

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 introduction | 33

of a single study at this stage. This study may be considered a Baustein for
that grander purpose.
42 Lange, Paradise and Hell, 11.
43 Lange is, therefore, critical of the use of such terms as ‘hereafter’, ‘after-
life’, ‘afterworld’ or ‘world to come’, terms that all hint at a diachronic
understanding of the relation between dunyā and ākhira. He prefers to
use the term ‘otherworld’, to stress the aspect of Paradise and Hell being
‘everywhen’. Lange, Paradise and Hell, 11–12.
44 Karamustafa, Formative Period, 19. See also Karamustafa, ‘Eschatology
in Early Sufi Thought’.
45 Gerhard Böwering, The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam: The
Qurʾānic Hermeneutics of the Ṣūfī Sahl al-Tustarī (d.283/896) (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 1980), 145–6.
46 Ibid., 145–84.
47 Katz, ‘Mysticism and Interpretation’, 7.
48 Louis Massignon, Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of
Islamic Mysticism, trans. Benjamin Clark (Notre Dame, IN: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1997); Paul Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage
mystique: nouvel essay sur le lexique technique des mystiques musulmans
(Beirut: Dar El-Machreq, 1970).
49 Goldziher, Koranauslegung, 180–262.
50 Ibid., 180.
51 Ibid., 180–262. Only the tafsīr of al-Qāshānī (d. 730/1329), which he
falsely attributes to Ibn al-ʿArabī, is given some space.
52 Of the authors treated in this study, only al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī
show up in works of ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn. Maybudī ( fl. second half of
the fifth/eleventh to first half of the sixth/twelfth century), al-Daylamī
(d. 587/1191?) and Rūzbihān (d. 606/1209) are not mentioned for rea-
sons unclear. It may have been that they were simply not well known
enough as authors of tafsīr to make it into these works and not considered
‘canonical’. It may also be that their works were not considered tafsīrs
in the proper sense and excluded on normative grounds. The second
option is doubtful, however, since ṭabaqāt authors generally did not
exclude people for normative reasons, and would rather simply add their
normative objections to the lemma. A good example of this is al-Sulamī,
who is mentioned alongside a criticism of his tafsīr. Al-Suyūṭī mentions
al-Sulamī as ‘the shaykh of the Sufis and their scholar in Khurasan’, and

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al-Qushayrī as ‘the renunciant, the Sufi, the shaykh of Khurasan, the

master of the community and the leader of the group’. See Jalāl al-Dīn
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Suyūṭī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn, ed. ʿAlī Muḥammad
ʿUmayr (Cairo: Maktabat Wahba, 1976), 73–4, 97–8. Al-Adnarwī men-
tions the same titles for al-Qushayrī, adding that he was ‘elegant in allu-
sion’ (malīḥ al-ishāra). See Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Adnarwī, Ṭabaqāt
al-mufassirīn, ed. Sulaymān b. Ṣāliḥ al-Khazī (Medina: Maktabat al-ʿulūm
wa’l-ḥikam, 1997) 125–7. Al-Dāwūdī also mentions al-Sulamī as shaykh
mashāyikh al-ṣūfiyya (master of Sufi shaykhdom), and quotes both say-
ings in favour of and in opposition to him and his tafsīr. He also has very
favourable words for al-Qushayrī and recognises him as the leader of the
Sufis of Khurasan. Shams al-Dīn Muhāmmad b. ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Dāwūdī,
Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1983), 1:344–52;
2:142–3.
53 Suyūṭī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn, 98.
54 Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-Dhahabī, al-Tafsīr wa’l-mufassirūn (Cairo:
Maktabat Wahba, 2003), 2:250–307.
55 Dhahabī, Tafsīr wa’l-mufassirūn, 2:261. Al-Dhahabī is explicitly nega-
tive on naẓarī tafsīr. He does defend ishārī tafsīr as a legitimate form
of exegesis as long as the apparent (ẓāhir) meaning of the Qurʾan is
respected, and quotes favourable opinions of earlier authorities such
as Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ al-Shahrazurī and Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftazānī. Dhahabī,
Tafsīr wa’l-mufassirūn, 2:256–60, 264–70. For an analysis of the implicit
and explicit ideological choices made in this work, see Walid Saleh,
‘Historiography of Tafsīr in Arabic’, 6–11.
56 Süleyman Ateș, İşârî tefsîr okulu (Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi, 1974).
57 Alan Godlas, ‘Ṣūfism’, in The Blackwell Companion to the Qurʾān, ed.
Andrew Rippin (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 350–1.
58 Kristin Z. Sands, Ṣūfī Commentaries on the Qurʾān in Classical Islam
(London: Routledge, 2006), 67.
59 Ibid., 1–4.
60 Jamal Elias, ‘Ṣūfī Tafsīr Reconsidered: Exploring the Development of a
Genre’, JQS 12 (2010): 45.
61 Two recent edited volumes testify to this interest: Karen Bauer, ed., Aims,
Methods and Contexts of Qurʾanic Exegesis (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2013); Andreas Görke and Johanna Pink, eds, Tafsīr and Islamic
Intellectual History: Exploring the Boundaries of a Genre (Oxford: Oxford

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 introduction | 35

University Press, 2014). Both works contain useful introductions that

give a good overview of the situation in this field.
62 Görke and Pink, Tafsīr and Islamic Intellectual History, 1.
63 As Karen Bauer states, ‘At its essence, tafsir is each scholar’s attempt
to relate his world to the world of the Qurʾan; it is his attempt to relate
his intellectual, political and social contexts to the Qurʾan’s text. It is a
process of meaning-creation, because what the scholars read into the
text is not always explicitly there.’ Bauer, Aims, Methods and Contexts, 8.
64 McAuliffe, Qurʾānic Christians, 27. McAuliffe does recognise the impor-
tance of tafsīr for intellectual history, but is more sceptical than Bauer
about the potential of tafsīr as a source for a better understanding of
the social, political or economic environments of classical exegetes.
‘Contemporary context does not count as a hermeneutical element’
(McAuliffe, Qurʾānic Christians, 35).
65 For example, Annabel Keeler strongly emphasises the ‘experiential’
component of Sufi readings of the Qurʾan, which according to her ‘results
in a diversity that mirrors the degree and variety of mystical experi-
ence of each and every commentator’. See Annabel Keeler, ‘Ṣūfī Tafsīr
as a Mirror: Al-Qushayrī the Murshid in his Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt’, JQS 8, no. 1
(2006): 2.
66 Norman Calder, ‘Tafsīr from Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr: Problems in the
Description of a Genre, Illustrated with Reference to the Story of
Abraham’, in Approaches to the Qurʾān, eds G. R. Hawting and Abdul-
Kader A. Shareef (London: Routledge, 1993), 103–4.
67 McAuliffe, Qurʾānic Christians, 312.
68 Saleh, Formation, 15.
69 Saleh, Formation, 9, 14–15; McAuliffe, Qurʾānic Christians, 291.
70 The long time that the field has waited for Böwering and Godlas’s next
contributions, combined with the limited amount of scholars active in
this niche and the general ‘crisis’ of philology within Islamic Studies, is
not encouraging. It may well be an indication that we should not expect
the larger spectrum of Sufi commentaries to be covered anywhere in
the near future. This would need a collective scholarly enterprise and
resources that are not currently available to the field.
71 Excepted are the tafsīr works by Ibn Barrajān (d. 536/1141), which
could arguably be labelled as Sufi commentaries as well: the Tanbīh
al-afhām and Īḍāḥ al-ḥikma. The main reason for not including these

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sources is that they are not genealogically part of the tafsīr tradition
as it developed in Nishapur and the larger Persia region, and do not
refer back to the same authorities. For a concise monograph on this
author and his Qurʾan commentaries, see Yousef Casewit, The Mystics
of al-Andalus: Ibn Barrajān and Islamic Thought in the Twelfth Century
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), as well as Casewit’s
critical edition of his tafsīr: ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Barrajān,
A Qurʾān Commentary by Ibn Barrajān of Seville (d. 536/1141): ‘Īḍāḥ
al-ḥikma bi-aḥkām al-ʿibra’ (Wisdom Deciphered, the Unseen Discovered),
eds Gerhard Böwering and Yousef Casewit (Leiden: Brill, 2015). To ʿAbd
al-Qādir al-Jīlānī (d. 561/1165), a tafsīr has also been attributed, but the
authorship is unclear (see Ateș, İşârî tefsîr okulu, 134–5). We have thus
left him out of this analysis. Godlas also mentions that a commentary by
a certain al-Darwājikī (d. 549/1154) was authored in the same period
(Godlas, ‘Ṣūfism’, 354–5). This is only available in manuscripts and noth-
ing is known about the author. Its study may be a worthwhile enterprise
for another time, but would complicate this particular study too much.
72 Only one manuscript copy of this tafsīr is currently known to exist, in
Sarajevo, probably dating to the seventh/thirteenth century. This has
been critically edited. See Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn
al-Sulamī, Ziyādāt Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, ed. Gerhard Böwering (Beirut: Dar
El-Machreq, 1997).
73 The field is in dire need of a critical edition of this work, which is in prep-
aration by Gerhard Böwering. There is currently only one non-critical
printed edition, based on only one manuscript, from which the com-
mentary on Sūrah Yūsuf is missing. Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Muḥammad b.
al-Ḥusayn al-Sulamī, Tafsīr al-Sulamī wa-hiya Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, ed. Sayyid
ʿUmrān (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2001). This study largely relies
on this edition and refers to it in the notes. Prof. Böwering has generously
provided me with a preview of his critical edition of the commentary on
Sūrah Yūsuf, which is missing from the Sayyid ʿUmrān edition.
74 ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Hawāzim al-Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt: tafsīr ṣūfī kāmil
li’l-Qurʾān al-karīm, ed. Ibrāhīm Basyūnī (Cairo: al-Hayʾat al-miṣriyya
al-ʿāmma li’l-taʾlīf wa’l-nashr, 1981–3). This is the oldest and most
authoritative edition to date, and the work that we will refer to in our
notes. A more recent edition is ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Hawāzim al-Qushayrī,
Tafsīr al-Qushayrī al-musammā Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt, ed. Saʿīd Quẓayfa

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 introduction | 37

(Cairo: al-Maktabat al-tawfīqiyya, n.d.). The monograph is by Martin

Nguyen, Sufi Master and Qurʾān Scholar: Abū’l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī and the
‘Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt’ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
75 I have used the following edition: Abū’l-Faḍl Rashīd al-Dīn Maybudī,
Kashf al-asrār wa-ʿuddat al-abrār: maʿrūf bi-tafsīr khwājī ʿAbd Allāh
Anṣārī, ed. ʿAlī Aṣghar Ḥikmat (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Ibn Sīnā, 1965–91).
Keeler has authored a valuable monograph on this commentary. See
Annabel Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics: The Qurʾan Commentary of Rashīd
al-Dīn Maybudī (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Significant
parts of the commentary have been translated and analysed in William C.
Chittick, Divine Love: Islamic Literature and the Path to God (New Haven,
CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2013).
76 For an overview of the field of ‘Rūzbihān studies’, see Carl W. Ernst,
Ruzbihan Baqli: Mysticism and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian Sufism
(Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996), xi–xiii.
77 Alan Godlas is working on a critical edition and translation of the com-
plete work, which will be an important addition to the field. For our
study of the text, we depend on Godlas’s unpublished critical edition of
the introduction and the commentary on Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, and on an uncrit-
ical edition of the complete work. This uncritical edition, published by
Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, is based on an Indian lithograph that, according
to Godlas, is ‘riddled with significant errors’. See Godlas, ‘Ṣūfism’, 354;
Rūzbihān al-Baqlī, ʿArāʾis al-bayān fī ḥaqāʾiq al-Qurʾān, ed. Aḥmad Farīd
al-Miziyadī (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2008); Alan A. Godlas, ‘The
ʿArāʾis al-bayān: the Mystical Qurʾānic Exegesis of Rūzbihān al-Baqlī’
(PhD dissertation, University of California, 1991).
78 For this study, I have made use of two manuscripts: ‘Kitāb al-tafsīr
al-Daylamī’, Yeni Cami, Istanbul, MS 57 and ‘Futūḥ al-Raḥmān fī ishārāt
al-Qurʾān’, Veliyuddin Efendi, Istanbul, MS 430. In the notes, I refer to
the folio numbers of Yeni Cami MS 57. Besides these manuscripts, I have
thankfully relied on an unpublished critical edition in the form of a PhD
dissertation submitted at Sakarya University in Turkey. This critical edi-
tion is based on three manuscripts (Yeni Cami MS 57, Veliyuddin Efendi
MS 430, and Bağdatlı Vehbî Bölümü MS 185) and takes Yeni Cami MS
57 as its basis. See Yahya Yaşar, ‘Şemsuddîn Ebû Sâbit Muhammed b.
Abdulmelik Ed-Deylemî’nin (v. 589/1193) Kitâbü Tasdîkı’l-Maârif Adlı
Eserinin Edisyon Kritiği’ (PhD dissertation, Sakarya University, 2010).

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79 For a discussion of the problem of reconstructing the biographical details

of this author and the relative oblivion into which he fell, see Chapter 2.
80 On the importance of involving minor figures in the study of intel-
lectual history, see Richard Rorty, ‘The Historiography of Philosophy:
Four Genres’, in Philosophy in History: Essays on the Historiography of
Philosophy, eds Richard Rorty, J. B. Schneewind and Quentin Skinner
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 67–74.

38

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 sufi qurʾan commentaries: the rise of a genre | 39

2
Sufi Qurʾan Commentaries:
The Rise of a Genre

Introduction

This chapter discusses the five main sources used in this study, and
what their compositions and exegetical methods teach us about
the development of Sufi tafsīr in the period under scrutiny. We will
elaborate on some of the issues raised in Chapter 1 concerning what
we understand to be a ‘Sufi’ commentary, what might be considered
the ‘Sufi’ exegetical method and how these Sufi commentaries relate
to general developments in the history of tafsīr until the seventh/­
thirteenth century. The authors are placed into their broader circles
of influence and historical context. As explained in Chapter 1, to
understand how Sufi ideas were constructed, one has to look at the
full network of relations in the personal, linguistic, religious, social
and political spheres.
The period we are dealing with in this study is what Marshall
Hodgson defined as the ‘Islamic Earlier Middle Period’ (950­–1250
ce).1 All of the authors in this study – al-Sulamī, al-Qushayrī, Maybudī,
al-Daylamī and Rūzbihān – fall within this period. They lived, studied,
authored and taught in the major Persian centres of learning: Nishapur,
Yazd, Herat, Shiraz and Hamadan. These cities were under Saljūq rule
for the larger part of the Islamic Earlier Middle Period. This period is

39

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characterised by the ‘transformation of Muslim society’.2 It saw the

restoration of a Jamāʿī-Sunnī political order in the Islamic world and
the further institutionalisation of both Islamic learning in the form of
madrasahs and Sufism in the form of khānaqāhs. Sufism in this period
found a firmly established place within Islamic society and produced
some prominent figures, besides the authors of our present study,
such as Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī (d. 430/1038), the famous al-Ghazālī
brothers Abū Ḥāmid (d. 505/1111) and Aḥmad (d. 520/1126), and
ʿAyn al-Quḍāt al-Hamadhānī (d. 525/1131).3 It was also the period
in which the genre of Sufi commentaries on the Qurʾan became well
established, with several commentaries being written that were quite
diverse in style and content. To properly contextualise the rise of the
genre of Sufi Qurʾan commentaries, we must first have a closer look
at the rise of this genre in Nishapur, where al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī
lived and taught, and then move on to the other authors and their
historical contexts.4

Nishapur in the Fourth/Tenth and Fifth/Eleventh Centuries

It is not my intention to provide a detailed history of Nishapur in

these centuries or to present new facts based on unexplored sources.
I only highlight some general developments on the sociopolitical
level as well as on the religious level, which are of course intimately
intertwined. These developments are directly relevant to a better
understanding of the appearance of Sufi tafsīr as a literary genre, and
of the works of al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī, its first representatives in
Nishapur. This is largely based on existing research.

Social and Political Background

The city of Nishapur was one of the four great cities in the region
of Khurasan in north-western Persia, the others being Marv, Herat
and Balkh. It went through a period of great religious and cultural
flourishing and prosperity from the fourth/tenth to the sixth/twelfth
century. It was the market centre for a rich agricultural region as well
as a hub of industry and commerce, mostly ceramics and fine clothes.5
Its population in this period is estimated to have been between 30,000

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 sufi qurʾan commentaries: the rise of a genre | 41

and 40,000.6 At the beginning of the tenth century, it was under the
rule of the Persian Sāmānid dynasty. From the second half of the tenth
century, the Turkic Ghaznavids ruled the city, until the Saljūqs took
over the city in 428/1037 and made it their capital for six years. They
continued to rule it until the sacking of the old city by the Ghuzz in
548/1153. This meant the end of the city’s prominence in the region.7
Culturally, Nishapur was a Persian city with Persian as its main lan-
guage, but it also comprised an Arabic and Turkic presence.8
The social and political history of Nishapur under Sāmānid and
Ghaznavid rule mainly revolves around a number of patrician families
that ruled the city in relative autonomy. They ruled in a subtle power
balance with the higher external authorities, which in their turn pat-
ronised different factions according to their interests. These patrician
families were landowners, merchants and religious scholars, often all
three at once, and managed the city’s affairs largely by themselves.9
Under Saljūq rule, their autonomous position weakened due to fac-
tional strife and attempts by the Saljūqs to gain a stronger hold on the
city. This eventually led to the downfall of the city’s prominence.10

The Religious Scene

By the end of the eleventh century, the majority of Nishapur was

Islamised. Small communities of Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians
continued to exist. The Islamic religious sphere was divided between
Ḥanafīs and Shāfiʿīs, Muʿtazilīs and Ashʿarīs, the Karrāmiyya, and a
minor Shīʿī presence.11
The patrician families patronised and dominated most of the
religious scene and its institutions of learning. With their income
from the agricultural hinterlands they financed awqāf (endowments),
religious edifices and public works. Merchants spent their leisure
time on religious study with scholars.12 They were, as was most of
eastern Iran and Transoxania, roughly divided in two camps: a Ḥanafī
camp and a Shāfiʿī camp. Most of the Ḥanafīs, though not exclusively,
were Muʿtazilī in creed. The Shāfiʿīs were initially not homogeneous
in credal matters, but from the eleventh century onwards were pre-
dominantly Ashʿarī.13 To be affiliated to either the Ḥanafī or Shāfiʿī

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school was a legal necessity for the patrician families, since the social
order depended upon Islamic law. The Islamic legal order guaran-
teed them, as representatives and patrons of the religious order, a
sense of independence from the higher political authorities, who
were subject to the same law.14 However, this affiliation to a legal
school represented more than practical necessity. It was the basis for
group solidarity (ʿaṣabiyya) and it thus regularly led to factionalism
and political tensions within the city. The two camps sometimes even
clashed violently. In the eleventh century, the Saljūqs under Ṭughril
Beg (d. 455/1063) patronised Ḥanafism and gave preference to
Ḥanafīs in religious and government appointments. This culminated
in the violent persecution of the Shāfiʿīs, who followed the Ashʿarī
creed, starting around 439/1048. This persecution ended only when,
after the death of Ṭughril Beg, the Shāfiʿī Niẓām al-Mulk (d. 485/1092)
was appointed as vizier of Khurasan, and patronised the Shāfiʿī school
and Ashʿarī creed instead.15
The only segment of the religious scene that was not dominated
and patronised by the patrician families, and could perhaps even be
considered a countermovement, was the more populist and proselyt-
ising movement of the Karrāmiyya, who had their own distinct views
on credal matters, jurisprudence and asceticism. The poorer segments
of society that were not patronised by the patrician families seem to
have been more attracted to their preaching. With their militant social
activism and emphasis on poverty ( faqr), prohibition on working for
profit (taḥrīm al-makāsib) and reliance on God for sustenance (tawak-
kul), they profiled themselves as leaders of the oppressed poor as a
force against the trading class of the patricians and their religious
elite.16 Therefore, this movement had quite a strong mobilising power
among the lower classes and was thus able to play a significant role
on the political scene. They were patronised by the Ghaznavids for
some time and shortly held the influential position of raʾīs (leader)
around the year 1010 ce.17 Although the patricians were divided
among themselves by madhhab (school of law), and now and then
had violent clashes with each other, they tended to unite against the
common threat of the Karrāmiyya.18

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 sufi qurʾan commentaries: the rise of a genre | 43

Religious Education

It was also the Karrāmiyya who started with the practice of estab-
lishing khānaqāhs and madrasahs to institutionalise their commu-
nal life, missionary work and education. Only at the end of the tenth
century did other groups, notably the Sufis from the Shāfiʿī school,
start to establish similar institutions.19 These institutions flourished
especially in Nishapur. They were often built for famous teachers and
stayed within their families after their deaths, as was the case with
the madrasah built for al-Qushayrī’s teacher and father-in-law Abū
ʿAlī al-Daqqāq (d. 405/1015).20 The works of scholars were kept in
libraries inside these madrasahs.21
Islamic education was not strictly limited to these institutions.
A teacher–student relationship could develop outside the madrasah
as well. A thoroughly systematised curriculum with age restrictions
or required courses was not present. The person teaching was con-
sidered important more for the quality of the education than the
institutional environment. The teacher granted the student an ijāza
(licence) when a subject or text had been sufficiently studied. Linked
by this ijāza to a chain of oral authority, the student was himself then
certified to teach.22 By excluding people of low birth from obtaining
ijāzas, the patricians used this educational system to buttress their
own position and to keep monopolising the production, transmission
and dissemination of religious knowledge.23

The Position of Sufism

For Sufism, the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries were a

period of consolidation and organisation of what had been established
in the previous centuries, and of making the material available to a
larger audience. Much of what we know about early Sufism is through
works composed in this period.24 Different strands of proto-Sufism,
notably the Sufism of Baghdad (which was the only proto-strand that
actually defined itself with the word taṣawwuf ), the People of Blame
(Malāmatiyya) of Khurasan, and the Sages of Transoxania definitively
merged into one movement from then on known as ‘Sufism’.25 During

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the third/ninth century, the movement of renunciants (zuhhād) was

still dominant, while the Malāmatiyya gradually emerged. Sufism
appeared in Nishapur around the middle of the fourth/tenth century
and dominated the scene by the end of the fifth/eleventh century.26
This process mostly took place through the ascendancy of the
Sufism of Baghdad in these regions, more or less integrating the other
regionally existing trends, including the Karrāmī khānaqāhs and the
Malāmatī chivalry ( futuwwa) lore.27 Besides this merging of traditions
on an intellectual level, the popular support of these Sufi ideas was
enhanced as well. Until the fourth/tenth century, the different strands
of proto-Sufism had mostly been an endeavour for an elite, but now
several authors made the effort to spread Sufi ideas and concepts to a
larger audience.28 In this transformation the region of Khurasan, and
Nishapur in particular – as we shall see partly through the works of
al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī – played a crucial role.
The main movement with a renunciant-mystical orientation in
Nishapur to merge with the Sufism of Baghdad was that of the People
of Blame (Malāmatiyya). It emerged in Nishapur around the third/
ninth century and is, among others, associated with Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār
(d. 271/884), who is included in al-Sulamī’s commentary. Their teach-
ing was centred on a basic radical doctrine of denunciation of any
form of outward appearance of piety, which should lead to an attitude
of constant self-blame and the attraction of blame by others (hence
the name ‘Malāmatiyya’, rooted in Q 5:54 and Q 75:2), and the strug-
gle against hope for divine reward or approval by man. In opposition
to the Karrāmiyya, they stressed the importance of working for one’s
livelihood and assimilating into mainstream social life. They were
closely related to the craftsmen who were practitioners of chivalry
( futuwwa). Their negative attitude towards the outward appearance
of piety resulted in apparent assimilation into the mainstream and a
lack of distinct institutions or even their own textual tradition.29 Some
of its leading figures were in contact with the Sufis of Baghdad and so
some exchange of ideas must have taken place.30
It is not clear to what extent the renunciant attitude of the
Karrāmiyya influenced the development of Sufism in Nishapur.

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Al-Sulamī did not quote Ibn Karrām once in his works, and did not
include him in his Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya.31 He was not unique in this.
Most of the Sufi authors of his time tended to ignore the Karrāmiyya,
which indicates they were not highly regarded by the Sufis and that
despite their renunciant tendencies they were not considered part of
the same mystical trend, as opposed to the Malāmatiyya.32
A popular narrative on the history of Sufism is that it developed
as a counterculture to, and often in conflict with, the religious estab-
lishment engaged in exoteric Islamic sciences which were perceived
as spiritually unsatisfactory, only to be moulded into the Islamic
mainstream by Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111).33 The history
of Sufism in Nishapur brings nuance to this narrative and shows that
al-Ghazālī’s synthesis was rather the conclusion of a process of rec-
onciliation of traditions that had been going on for much longer, and
was probably quite deep-rooted in the formative period of Sufism.34
Many of the ʿulamāʾ (scholars) of Nishapur had Sufi affiliations and
many Sufis were teachers or scholars in religious institutions of learn-
ing.35 It was especially in the circles of Shāfiʿī learning that Sufism was
embraced.36

Nishapur and the Rise to Prominence of the Genre of Tafsīr

The regions of Khurasan and Transoxania saw activity in the field of

tafsīr as early as the beginning of the second/eight century. Nishapur
was the epicentre of this activity.37 It reached its zenith in the fourth/
tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries and produced such prominent
exegetes as Ibn Ḥabīb (d. 406/1015), al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035) and
al-Wāḥidī (d. 468/1076), whose commentaries had significant influ-
ence on the development of the genre in subsequent centuries.38 Most
of the authors of works of tafsīr belonged to the Shāfiʿī intellectual
milieu. Ḥanafīs and Muʿtazilīs also produced some works, and the
Karrāmiyya and Shīʿīs were productive in the genre as well.39
On the reason for the rise and success of this genre we can only
speculate. It has been suggested that it was part of a ‘philological revo-
lution’, or an attempt to bring the Qurʾan to the heart of Muslim devo-
tional life.40 When a strand of Islamic thought or an Islamic ­science

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matured, it would relate itself to the Qurʾan in the form of tafsīr to

show how it was reconcilable with or even rooted in the Qurʾanic
text.41 One could say that tafsīr thus functioned as an apologetic genre.
It also had the capacity to create like-mindedness among a group of
readers, to control and set boundaries for the activity of reading mean-
ing into the Qurʾan, and to make this a communal practice.42 Another
function of its encyclopaedic variant may have been the creation of a
broad consensus through its polyvalence and relative inclusiveness.43
The success of shorter summarising works of tafsīr in Nishapur may
have been to do with the development of the educational system as
well, and the need for suitable texts for instruction in the madrasahs.44
More fundamental research is needed to give conclusive answers on
the function of tafsīr in Nishapur’s religious and cultural landscape.

Al-Sulamī and his Commentary: Witness to the Formative

Period of Sufism

His Life, Education and Works

Coming from an upper-class family of religious learning and Arabic

descent, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Azdī
al-Sulamī al-Naysābūrī (d. 412/1021) spent most of his life study-
ing and teaching in the city of his birth, and death: Nishapur. This
city was under the rule of the Ghaznavids during his entire life.
His first teacher was his father, al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad b. Mūsā
al-Azdī, who later entrusted him to his maternal grandfather, Abū
ʿAmr Ismāʿīl b. Nujayd al-Sulamī (d. 366/976), himself an adherent
of the Malāmatiyya in Nishapur and a disciple of Abū ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī
(d. 298/910), a well-known Shāfiʿī scholar of hadith. His grandfather
was also in contact with al-Junayd (d. 298/910) of Baghdad. It was
allegedly al-Sulamī’s grandfather’s colleague, the prominent Ḥanafī
scholar and judge Abū Sahl b. Sulaymān al-Ṣuʿlūkī (d. 369/980), who
is said to have initiated al-Sulamī into Sufism and given him an ijāza
to teach pupils (murīdūn).45 However, his most important teacher in
Sufism was Abū’l-Qāsim Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad al-Naṣrābādhī (d.
367/978), who allegedly granted him the khirqa (initiatory cloak) as

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well. Al-Naṣrābādhī was a Shāfiʿī scholar of hadith and a pupil of Abū

Bakr al-Shiblī (d. 334/946) of Baghdad.46
Al-Sulamī was an avid student of hadith himself as well and trav-
elled throughout Khurasan and Iraq for this. After his pilgrimage to
Mecca together with al-Naṣrābādhi in 366/977, he spent the rest of
his life in Nishapur as a resident scholar. He worked and taught in
his own duwayra,47 containing the extensive library that he inherited
from his grandfather and teacher, Ismāʿīl b. Nujayd. He seems to have
been highly respected throughout Khurasan as a teacher of hadith
and as a Shāfiʿī man of learning. It is said that he was a prolific author,
with allegedly more than a hundred works to his name. Around thirty
of these have been preserved, remarkably all related to Sufism: Sufi
hagiographies, Sufi commentaries on the Qurʾan and treatises on Sufi
traditions and customs.48
As mentioned previously, al-Sulamī lived in an age in which
the initial formation of Sufism had come to an end and the differ-
ent strands of Islamic mysticism, under the dominant Sufism of
Baghdad, had become more or less synthesised. Al-Sulamī himself
is considered to have played a significant role in the merging of the
Malāmatiyya with the Sufism of Baghdad.49 Al-Sulamī was connected
to the Malāmatiyya through several teachers. Through his teachers,
at an early stage in his intellectual development he was already well
acquainted with both the sober and the ecstatic thought of the Sufis
of Baghdad, such as al-Junayd, al-Shiblī and even Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj
(d. 309/922).50

His Commentaries: Self-definition

Two separate but very similar Qurʾan commentaries are known to

have come from al-Sulamī’s hand. All current schemes of periodisa-
tion of Sufi tafsīr place these two tafsīrs at the end of the first, forma-
tive period, and consider them to have been witnesses to the most
important Sufi sayings on the Qurʾan from this period.51
The first is the Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr. Based on its exclusively Sufi con-
tent, it is estimated that he authored this work at a comparatively
early stage in his career, probably between 360/970 and 370/980.52

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In the introduction to the work, there are some hints as to how al-
Sulamī conceived of a Sufi tafsīr and what he intended with this work.
It starts with a praise of God for making the ‘people of realities’ (ahl
al-ḥaqāʾiq) understand His speech. They have, he states, ‘reported on
the meanings of His speech from the subtleties (laṭāʾif ) of its secrets
and meanings, according to what God has disclosed to every one of
them’ and ‘spoken about the understanding of His book according to
its marvels that occurred to them’.53 However, he stresses that they
can have only a limited understanding of the Qurʾan’s realities due to
the greatness of the book and the one to whom it has been revealed,
that is Muhammad. He points out how the outward (ẓāhir) sciences
of the Qurʾan had developed, until nearly everything had been said,
but that no one had worked on understanding it according to its
reality (ʿalā ḥisāb al-ḥaqīqa), except for some unordered fragments
attributed to Ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Ādamī and Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad, that he
is aware of. 54 He therefore felt the need to bring those together,
including sayings from other shaykhs of the ‘people of reality’ (ahl
al-ḥaqīqa) and organising it according to the order of the surahs in
the Qurʾan.55
He then quotes four sayings that explain the method of tafsīr
used by the ‘people of reality’. These sayings are typically used by
proponents of Sufi readings of the Qurʾan and have largely deter-
mined their hermeneutical terminology.56 Al-Sulamī does not further
elaborate on the meaning of these four sayings and its consequences
for his own work of tafsīr, nor does he explain why he mentions
them.57 The first is an account attributed to ʿAlī in which he is asked
whether any other revelation (waḥy) from the Prophet besides the
Qurʾan is available. His answer is no, ‘except for a servant who has
understood His book’, implying that a correct understanding of the
Qurʾan is a form of revelation.58 The second is a hadith in which
Muhammad states that the Qurʾan was sent down upon seven ‘let-
ters’ (aḥruf ), that every verse has an outer side (ẓahr) and an inner
side (baṭn), and that every ‘letter’ has a terminal point (ḥadd) and a
starting point (muṭṭalaʿ).59 The third is a saying attributed to Jaʿfar b.
Muḥammad:

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The book of God is according to four things: worship (ʿibāda), allu-

sion (ishāra), subtleties (laṭāʾif ) and realities (ḥaqāʾiq). Worship
is for the laymen (ʿawāmm), allusion for the elect (khawāṣṣ), the
subtleties for the friends [of God] (awliyāʾ), and the realities for the
prophets (anbiyāʾ).60

The last quote is again attributed to ʿAlī and similar to the first quote.
It again states that every verse of the Qurʾan has four meanings: an
outer meaning (ẓāhir), an inner meaning (bāṭin), a terminal point
(ḥadd) and a starting point (muṭṭalaʿ). The saying then further defines
these four: the outer meaning is recitation (tilāwa); the inner meaning
is understanding ( fahm); the terminal point is interpretation (ʿibāra),
allusion (ishāra) and the rulings of what is permitted and what is
not. The starting point is what God expects from the servant with
the verse. ʿAlī then concludes: ‘He has made the Qurʾan an interpre-
tation, allusion, subtleties and realities. Worship is for the hearing,
allusion for the intellect (ʿaql), the subtleties are for contemplation
(mushāhada), and the realities for submission (istislām).’61
His second work is Ziyādāt Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr (Additions to ‘The
Realities of Tafsīr’).62 Al-Sulamī wrote it, so he states in his introduc-
tion, after he finished Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr and realised he wanted to add
more material: ‘To this end I prepared a special book so that neither
the hearing of one listening nor the writing of one copying may be cor-
rupted.’63 Here again he quotes without further explanation from some
early Sufi authorities on hermeneutics of the Qurʾan, quite similar to
those mentioned earlier. For example, he quotes al-Junayd stating
that the Qurʾan comes in four meanings: outer, inner, truth (ḥaqq) and
reality (ḥaqīqa). According to a quote from Sahl al-Tustarī, the Qurʾan
consists of five parts: clear (muḥkam), ambiguous (mutashābih),
permitted (ḥalāl), forbidden (ḥarām) and similitudes (amthāl). The
believer with experiential knowledge of God (al-ʿārif bi’llāh), then, ‘acts
upon the clear, believes in the ambiguous, considers the permitted to
be permitted and the forbidden to be forbidden, and understands the
similitudes’.64 A quote by Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq even mentions nine differ-
ent approaches to reading the Qurʾan: truth (ḥaqq), reality (ḥaqīqa),

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realisation (taḥqīq), realities (ḥaqāʾiq), pledges (ʿuhūd), agreements

(ʿuqūd), boundaries (ḥudūd), cutting of ties (qaṭʿa al-ʿalāʾiq), and exal-
tation of the worshipped (ijlāl al-maʿbūd).65
It is striking that he does not use the word taṣawwuf once in the
introduction to either work. Other terminology does catch the eye, of
which the most dominant are the ẓāhir and bāṭin dichotomy, ḥaqīqa
and its variants, ahl al-ḥaqāʾiq, ishāra and laṭāʾif. Since he does not
really expand on these terms, it is hard to give clear-cut definitions of
what they must have meant for al-Sulamī in this context or to deter-
mine what exactly he understood to be their hermeneutical signifi-
cance. This is made even more complicated by the fact that he, as we
shall see, does not explicitly use these terms and divisions in modes of
explanation as organising principles for his commentaries.
What each of the sayings that he quotes do seem to have in common
is that they testify to a meaning of the Qurʾan that goes ‘deeper’ than
its apparent meaning. He does not consider this meaning to be equally
accessible to every reader; it demands a certain level of refinement
in one’s inward life, resulting in, for example, maʿrifa or ḥaqīqa. Does
this lack of engagement with the concept of taṣawwuf mean he did not
himself consider his work to be explicitly a Sufi tafsīr? A possibility
might be that, as an agent in merging the strands of proto-Sufism,
he avoided the term taṣawwuf and opted for more ecumenical terms
like ahl al-ḥaqāʾiq to express a mystical understanding of the Islamic
tradition that was in his time still broader than only Sufism. This way
he could navigate between these two still distinct but slowly fusing
trends of Sufism and Malāmatiyya, both of which he identified with
and was linked to through several teachers.
His assessment in the introduction to Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr that the
Qurʾanic sciences have matured while an understanding ‘according to
its reality’ is still lacking might say something about his intention in
compiling the work. As Wolfhart Heinrichs has stated,

it is in the fourth/tenth century that the various fields of intel-

lectual pursuit within Islam come of age. The traditions that had
steadily been growing during the preceding two centuries now

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begin to reflect upon themselves: commentaries, compilations, and

handbooks make the available material accessible by clarifying or
organizing it.66

Al-Sulamī’s Qurʾan commentaries may be understood as an attempt to

ascertain a place for the Sufi tradition within that process of reflection
and consolidation of the matured Islamic sciences. It was by organis-
ing the heritage of mysticism from the previous centuries within the
format of a literary genre, which had become mainstream by the tenth
century and especially thrived in Nishapur, that he could create space
for, or perhaps even ‘canonise’, this particular understanding of the
Qurʾan within the consolidating Islamic tradition.
From al-Sulamī’s statement in his introduction to the Ziyādāt –
that he ‘prepared a special book so that neither the hearing of one
listening nor the writing of one copying may be corrupted’67 ­– we can
understand that he did not just write these commentaries with an
encyclopaedic motive. He intended to dictate and teach the texts, and
as a traditionist who granted ijāzas he probably wanted them to be
dictated and taught after him by his students as well. This makes it
difficult to classify the works using Walid Saleh’s distinction between
encyclopaedic and madrasah commentaries.68 Al-Sulamī appears to
have intended both purposes: on the one hand, to document all of the
sayings known to him from the earlier generations of Sufis that relate
to the Qurʾan; on the other, to use these sayings as instruction for his
students within the context of the broader method of Islamic learning
in Nishapur.

His Commentaries: Practice

So how did the intentions he described in his introductions work out

in practice? Al-Sulamī was trained as a traditionist (muḥaddith, or
scholar of hadith) rather than as a theologian.69 In addition, in his Sufi
commentaries he showed himself to be more a collector and compiler
of sayings from the earlier generations than an original author. In
Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, he commented on around 3,000 Qurʾanic verses,
about half of the whole Qurʾan. The larger part of this commentary

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consists of sayings from other authorities, some of them anonymous.

Only a negligible portion of the work consists of his own sayings.
One could say that this makes these works rather impersonal, and it
is not an easy task to understand the religious identity of the author
through them. Thibon has suggested that, influenced by the Malāmatī
aversion to public display of piety, he consciously put himself in the
background of his writings and left the main stage to other authori-
ties, thus protecting himself from pride and adulation.70 He also
states that the stress on prophetic traditions and sayings of early Sufi
masters should be understood against the background of his alliance
with the Shāfiʿī faction of Nishapur, rooted in the principles of the ahl
al-ḥadīth against the Ḥanafīs, who were rooted in the principles of the
ahl al-raʾy.71 The fact that he often quotes these sayings with a chain of
transmission or explicitly mentions his ijāza supports this.
These quoted sayings are either direct commentaries on specific
verses by earlier authorities or more general sayings that al-Sulamī
himself thematically associated with the subject of the verse.72 He
ordered this material according to the traditional order of the Qurʾanic
chapters and verses, thereby following what had already much earlier
become a well-established form in conventional exegesis. He refrained
from including conventional commentary though. He compiled only
those items of interpretation that he regarded as genuinely mysti-
cal ways of reading the Qurʾan, as ‘the understanding of the divine
discourse on the basis of the language of the People of Reality’ (fahm
kitābihi ʿala lisān ahl al-ḥaqīqa).73 He has therefore been called an
‘esoteric’ al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923), a systematic collector of practically
all extant Sufi sayings on or related to Qurʾanic verses.74 By doing so,
he made space for a specific Sufi genre to develop in the period in
which tafsīr literature rose to prominence.
His works contain the commentaries of illustrious figures of early
Islamic mysticism such as, among others, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765),
Dhū’l-Nūn al-Miṣrī (d. 246/861), Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896), Abū
Saʿīd al-Kharrāz (d. 286/899), al-Junayd (d. 298/910), Ibn ʿAṭāʾ
al-Ādamī (d. 311/923), Abū Bakr al-Wāsiṭī (d. 320/932) and al-Shiblī
(d. 334/946).75 Therefore, in his commentaries different strands of

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early Islamic proto-Sufism are fused: Baghdadi Sufism, Khurasanian

mysticism, and the Meccan renunciants.
According to Böwering, ‘Al-Sulamī’s work documents the persis-
tence of a significant esoteric vein among the Sufi elite of the fourth/
tenth century in coexistence with Sufi works attempting a harmoniza-
tion with orthodoxy.’76 Despite my objections to the use of the term
‘orthodoxy’ in this context, I tend to agree with Böwering that the
work is not as obvious as other prominent Sufi works appearing in
this period meant as an ‘apology’ for the Sufi tradition towards (or
an attempt at harmonisation with) the Sunni mainstream. However,
I believe that this does not necessarily mean that al-Sulamī held the
ideas propounded in the work to be in obvious conflict with that
Sunni mainstream. Rather, it seems that he simply wanted to refer
to a different register, one that he considered was not necessarily
interacting with the outward sciences of the Qurʾan, but with which
it could easily coexist. From his words in his introduction to Ḥaqāʾiq
al-tafsīr it becomes clear that he does not defer the ‘outward’ (ẓāhir)
approaches to the sciences of the Qurʾan, but considers this ‘inward’
(bāṭin), allusive (ishārī) approach to be an ‘extra’ step that has to
be taken in Qurʾanic sciences.77 Besides, one could also argue that
the act of linking Sufi experience to Qurʾanic verses, the founding
texts of the religious tradition, and organising them according to the
conventions of a by then well-established literary genre (tafsīr, that
is) within the Sunni mainstream was in itself an attempt to show its
‘genuine’ Islamic roots and to thus give it legitimacy within that Sunni
mainstream.
However, in light of the reception that the work received, we can
note that some other prominent contemporary scholars of tafsīr did
not consider it to be a justified ‘extra’ step and instead considered it
to be in conflict with the ‘correct’ understanding of the Qurʾan. For
example, the aforementioned al-Wāḥidī from Nishapur held that
‘should he [al-Sulamī] claim that this book is a commentary on the
Qurʾān, then he is an unbeliever’.78

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Al-Qushayrī and his Commentary

His Life, Education and Works

Like his teacher al-Sulamī, Zayn al-Islām Abū’l-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Karīm

b. Hawāzin al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072) was born to a family of Arab
ancestry. Through his father’s line he belonged to the tribe of Qushayr;
through his mother’s line to the tribe of Sulaym. He was born in
376/986 into an aristocratic milieu. After the death of his father,
his maternal uncle Abū ʿAqīl ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī al-Māyiqī
(d. 414/1023–4), a nobleman (nabīl) and landowner (dihqān),
raised him in Ustuwā, close to Nishapur. This uncle initially provided
al-Qushayrī with a typical aristocratic education, preparing him for
administrative tasks, with a strong focus on the Arabic language and
belles-lettres. He also learned the art of horsemanship (ʿilm furūsiyya)
and received modest military training. It was only when he came to
Nishapur for administrative reasons that his training in the religious
sciences started.79
During his stay in Nishapur, he by chance met the Shāfiʿī Sufi
scholar Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan al-Daqqāq (d. 405/1015), a former student
of al-Sulamī’s mentor al-Naṣrābādhī. Al-Daqqāq had his own madrasah
built for him in Nishapur, and this is where al-Qushayrī obtained most
of his religious education. His relationship with al-Daqqāq became
so close that he married his daughter and took over the directorship
of his madrasah after he passed away. Through al-Daqqāq and other
scholars linked to him, he was thoroughly educated in the different
branches of the religious sciences. He devoted himself to the study
and transmission of hadith, studied kalām (theology) according to
the principles of the Ashʿarī school and steeped himself in the Shāfiʿī
school of law. This meant that he became part of the social structure
attached to this school of law as well, which had momentous conse-
quences for his further life and career.80
When tensions between the Ḥanafī and Shāfiʿī factions in Nishapur
rose from the 430s/1040s onwards, and as a consequence the Ashʿarīs
were actively persecuted, al-Qushayrī took an active stance by writing
a defence of the Ashʿarī creed which was cosigned by leading schol-

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ars.81 This had serious consequences. As a part of the Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿī

elite, he was persecuted as well. He went into exile, going on hajj,
to ultimately settle in Baghdad in 448/1056. There he resumed his
scholarly activities. Only after the death of Ṭughril Beg (d. 455/1063)
could he return to Nishapur, under the patronage of Niẓām al-Mulk.82
His works show a keen interest in several disciplines of reli-
gious learning. He wrote philological Qurʾan commentaries, works
on Ashʿarī creed, on Shāfiʿī fiqh, and on Sufism. In his Sufi works,
states Nguyen, he sought, in the tradition of al-Junayd, ‘to authenti-
cate Sufism by the standards of the perceived Sunni mainstream’.83
In Sufism, he first sought training from al-Daqqāq. After al-Daqqāq
passed away, he studied with al-Sulamī in his duwayra. In his famous
Sufi work al-Risāla, one can witness a continuation of al-Sulamī’s pro-
ject of incorporating Malāmatī thought into Sufi works.84 His approach
to Sufism was generally sober, trying to integrate his mystical under-
standing of Islam with the traditional religious sciences. According to
Fritz Meier, al-Qushayrī was a central figure in the definitive shift from
the more academic instruction in Sufism by a shaykh al-taʿlīm (master
of instruction) to a more rigorous spiritual ‘training’ by a shaykh
al-tarbiyya (master of training).85 He was indeed considered a Sufi
shaykh in his own right, and in that capacity had a major influence on
the development of Sufism in the period that followed him. He trained
a new generation of pupils, among whom was al-Faḍl al-Fārmadhī,
the later teacher of Abū Ḥāmid (d. 505/1111) and Aḥmad al-Ghazālī
(d. 520/1126).86

His Sufi Commentary: Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt

Al-Qushayrī lived in a vibrant community of commentators on the

Qurʾan. Through several scholarly connections he stood in close con-
tact with many figures from the Nishapuri school of tafsīr. He thus
had access to knowledge of different strands of Qurʾanic exegesis.
Throughout his career he himself produced three Qurʾan commentar-
ies that are known to us. Two of them, al-Tafsīr al-kabīr (The Great
Commentary) and al-Taysīr fī’l-tafsīr (Facilitation in Tafsīr), mainly
deal with philological, theological and legal themes.87 The c­ ommentary

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of our specific interest, Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt (Subtleties of Allusions), inte-

grates linguistic, theological and Sufi themes.88
The title of the work draws on one of the sayings attributed to
Jaʿfar that al-Sulamī mentioned in his introduction. Unlike al-Sulamī,
al-Qushayrī does not make a clear introductory statement in his work
in which he defines his approach to the Qurʾan. However, there are
some indications in the introduction that point to the same core
themes that al-Sulamī addressed: the idea that there is indeed a
‘deeper’ approach to the Qurʾan, an approach that unveils the ‘subtle-
ties (laṭāʾif ) of His mysteries and His illuminations in order to give
insight into the subtleness of His signs (ishārāt) and the hiddenness
of His symbols that encompass Him’.89 This is complementary to the
exoteric understanding and is an approach that is not equally acces-
sible to every reader. These subtleties, so al-Qushayrī explains, God
bestows only upon the pure ones (aṣfiyāʾ) among His servants, which
for al-Qushayrī means the friends of God (awliyāʾ). It is a form of
experiential knowledge (maʿrifa). It thus represents, in the words
of Nguyen, an epistemology of ‘divine giving’ rather than of ‘active
acquisition’.90
Like al-Sulamī, al-Qushayrī does not apply the word taṣawwuf to
this class of people. He defines them as the ‘people of experiential
knowledge and the possessors of realities’ (ahl al-maʿrifa wa-aṣḥāb
al-ḥaqāʾiq), whom he considers to be a special category of religious
scholars (ʿulamāʾ) that are highest in the religious hierarchy and
represent that section within the Islamic sciences through which the
religion flourishes.91 Likewise, when he defines in his introduction
what he has tried to achieve, the word taṣawwuf is not explicitly men-
tioned: ‘This book of ours details, in accordance with the language of
the people of experiential knowledge, some of the allusions (ishārāt)
of the Qurʾan, either in regard to their stated meanings or the matters
of their foundations (uṣūl).’92
Although he quotes a large number of the sayings mentioned in
al-Sulamī’s commentary, and probably studied this commentary at
his feet, al-Qushayrī significantly differs from his former teacher in
his method of tafsīr. Whereas al-Sulamī only connects Sufi sayings

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to a limited number of Qurʾanic verses, al-Qushayrī also integrates

the exoteric Islamic sciences while working systematically through
the Qurʾan in its entirety. Philological, theological, legal and allusive
(ishārī) approaches to the Qurʾan are not clearly separated in his
commentary. He subtly switches from one approach to the other.
Sometimes, but not as a general rule, there seems to be a hierarchy
at work in the commentary, starting from conventional readings and
culminating in a Sufi climax: to get the ḥaqīqa right, one must first
grasp the shariah.93 The hermeneutical practice of al-Qushayrī shows
a profound linguistic interest in the Qurʾan and is often illustrated
with secular poetry, where his training in the Arabic language and
belles-lettres clearly shows through.94 This high level of Arabic, as
well as the concern with theological issues, shows that the work was
carefully and thoughtfully composed, and was not the result of an
‘inspired’ ecstatic way of writing.95
The commentary most probably served to instruct his students
at the madrasah, and may be seen as the result of years of teaching
tafsīr to a specialised audience. The tone is often pedagogical with a
strong emphasis on adab, in its meaning of both literature as well as
good manners, and the style shows traces of dictation to a specialised
group.96 One might say that the purpose of the work was to create
conceptual like-mindedness among his followers, with a stress on
harmony between the Ashʿarī creed, Shāfiʿī law and mystical ideas.
One could indeed say that the aspects of both taʿlīm and tarbiyya are
reflected in the work, and that the work thus appears to be located in
the middle of the shift that Meier described.97

Maybudī and his Commentary

His Life, Education and Works

Unlike in the cases of al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī, there is a dearth

of biographical information on Rāshid al-Dīn Abū’l-Faḍl Aḥmad b.
Muḥammad al-Maybudī. Even a death date is lacking. He supposedly
lived from sometime in the second half of the fifth/eleventh century
to sometime in the first half of the sixth/twelfth century in the region

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of Yazd.98 The city of Yazd in this time was nominally part of the Saljūq
dynasty, but the local lords, the Kākūyids, governed this part of west-
ern Persia in relative independence. Yazd flourished in this period
and it was an important centre for intellectual life.99 It is assumed that
Maybudī was the son of Jamāl al-Islām Abū Saʿd b. Aḥmad b. Mihrīzad
(d. 480/1087), a religious scholar and mystic of some standing. This
makes it probable that he grew up in a stimulating environment for
Islamic learning, and it is very likely that he travelled to other centres
of Islamic learning such as Herat, Marv or Nishapur to enhance his
knowledge in the various Islamic sciences.100
Only two of his works are still extant: Kitāb al-fuṣūl (Book of
Divisions), which is a short treatise on the virtues of officials of state
and religion, and his voluminous Qurʾan commentary Kashf al-asrār
wa-ʿuddat al-abrār (The Unveiling of Secrets and the Provision of
the Pious). Besides these, we know that he composed a collection of
forty hadith, the Kitāb-i arbaʿīn, which no longer survives.101 Given the
richness of Kashf al-asrār, his religious profile can be partly recon-
structed. He was a follower of the Shāfiʿī school of jurisprudence, but
unlike most Shāfiʿīs he did not follow the Ashʿarī school in credal
matters. He was inclined towards Ḥanbalism in this respect, which
becomes apparent in his treatment of such issues as the ‘direction’ of
God (which he considered to be ‘above’), the createdness of the Qurʾan
(which he believed to be uncreated in meaning, letters and sounds)
and the attributes of God (he believed that anthropomorphic refer-
ences to God in the Qurʾan should not be interpreted metaphorically,
but taken as they are without interpretation).102 If he indeed spent
time in Khurasan, it is probably there that he came into contact with
followers of ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī (d. 481/1089). Al-Anṣārī, to whom
he refers as pīr-i ṭarīqat (the master of the path) in his commentary,
influenced him greatly in matters of creed and mysticism, and put a
stamp on his commentary.103
His approach to mysticism was, according to Annabel Keeler,
largely determined by the rise of a love-oriented form of Sufism
in Khurasan. This focus on divine love had been present since the
early times of Sufism, but it was during Maybudī’s lifetime that it

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saw a definitive breakthrough on the Sufi scene of Khurasan, largely

because scholars like Aḥmad al-Ghazālī and Abū’l-Majd Majdūd Sanāʾī
(d. 525/1131) expressed their thoughts in Persian. Maybudī probably
picked up this love mysticism during his study stays in the cities of
Khurasan.104

His Commentary: Kashf al-asrār wa-ʿuddat al-abrār

In his introduction, Maybudī makes a clear statement about the pur-

pose of writing his Qurʾan commentary: he intends to help the ‘stu-
dent seeking guidance’ (al-mutaʿallim al-mustarshid) attain their goal
and to satisfy the one ‘who ponders and seeks insight’ (al-mutaʾammil
al-mustabṣir).105 Thus, his explicit goal was to provide spiritual
­guidance to the reader. Apparently, he thought that for this guidance
the reader would need an understanding of both the exoteric and
the esoteric aspects of the Qurʾan. From several passages in the com-
mentary it appears that he, like al-Qushayrī, saw an understanding of
shariah as being a prerequisite for the understanding of the aspects of
ḥaqīqa. This understanding of shariah is that it is both necessary for
and accessible to the masses (ʿawāmm), while ḥaqīqa is only acces-
sible to the elect (khawāṣṣ).106 The commentary was thus intended to
be an encompassing work offering the aspirant all that is needed to
embark on the path of Sufism.
Maybudī’s commentary brought some innovations to the genre.
First, he was the first commentator to write a Sufi tafsīr in Persian.
Second, where al-Sulamī only collected and presented mystical
understandings of the Qurʾanic text and al-Qushayrī subtly inte-
grated different strands of tafsīr, in Maybudī’s commentary we see
for the first time a strict separation of the exoteric from the mystical
in different sections within one work. The commentary is divided
into sessions (majlishā), which may be an indication that the work
was meant to be taught and perhaps even composed of notes from
teaching sessions. These sessions are subsequently divided into
three ‘turns’ (nawbathā, sing. nawbat). In the first nawbat, a Persian
translation of the verses of the Qurʾan is given.107 The second nawbat
then consists of straightforward philological, theological and legal

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commentary, in both Arabic and Persian. It is in the third nawbat that

mystical reflections on the verses are presented, and that Maybudī’s
more artistic, mostly Persian literary, side comes through.108 In the
expression of his mystical ideas, Maybudī allowed himself a freer
and more effusive style than al-Qushayrī. It is perhaps because of his
clear separation of the exoteric from the mystical that the exoteric
interpretations do not have too much of a ‘sobering’ effect on his
mystical utterings.
For his exoteric nawbat, he quotes scores of mainstream exe-
getical works including the likes of al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) and Ibn
Qutayba (d. 247/887). The major source for the mystical parts of his
commentary is the (no longer extant) tafsīr of ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī,
whom he quotes throughout his commentary preceded by the words
pīr-i ṭarīqat guft (the master of the path said…). He quotes munājāt
(intimate conversations with God) related by al-Anṣārī, aphorisms
and theological sermons.109
Only at the end of the commentary does he further unfold his
criteria for interpretation. He advocates a combination of tafsīr bi’l-
maʾthur (exegesis by transmitted reports) and tafsīr bi’l-raʾy (exegesis
by opinion); when a scholar has mastered the sciences needed for
tafsīr bi’l-maʾthūr, the scholar can within those boundaries freely
engage with the text and express opinions beside the transmitted
interpretations. For someone with traditionist-Ḥanbalī inclinations,
quite some space is reserved for expressing his own opinion and ben-
efiting spiritually and intellectually from the mutashābih verses.110
This already shows in his second section (nawbat), where transmitted
opinions are interwoven with his own observations, anecdotes and
devotional passages.111 But it is also this created space for a personal
engagement with the Qurʾanic text that paves the way for his mysti-
cal understanding of the Qurʾan. Further, he does not explicitly seek
to justify his mystical understanding of the Qurʾan as al-Sulamī did,
which may mean that it had become an accepted and established
practice when he wrote his work.

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Al-Daylamī and his Commentary

Who was Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī?

As is the case with Maybudī, we are confronted with a dearth of bio-

graphical information on Shams al-Dīn Abū Thābit Muḥammad b. ʿAbd
al-Malik al-Ṭūṣi al-Daylamī.112 Though his full name is known and we
have manuscripts of his major Sufi works, biographical details about
the author are lacking. This makes it hard to properly contextualise
his works within the circles of influence of the intellectual, social and
political environment in which he worked. We know nothing about
his education, his teachers, his students, his institutional affiliation,
his whereabouts and so on. Islamic biographers did not seem to
care a great deal about him and his works have remained in rela-
tive obscurity. Even the period in which he lived is not entirely clear.
Brockelmann, following an entry in Pertsch, dated one of his works as
written in 899/1493, probably based on a misprint in Ḥājjī Khalīfa’s
Kashf al-ẓunūn. The 1941 Istanbul edition of Kashf al-ẓunūn corrects
this date and places the work no less than two hijri centuries earlier,
in 699/1300. To further add to the confusion, the same Ḥājji Khalīfa
in another entry states that he died yet another century earlier, after
589/1193.113 Jāmī mentions him in his Nafaḥāt al-Uns and places him
in the seventh/fourteenth century. Arberry confirms 589/1193 as his
death date. Böwering holds this date to be a copying mistake as well
and states that it should be 587/1191.114
However, a close reading of al-Daylamī’s tafsīr reveals small auto-
biographical hints. The first hint comes in his introduction to the tafsīr
and gives the impression of a Ghazālī-like trope of spiritual crisis. Not
devoid of drama, he states that he spent years of his life, like many
other people, despising the Sufis and cursing them in his books and
writings.115 However, this attitude eventually made him feel extremely
unwell. Physicians thought melancholy (sawdāʾ) had taken control of
him, and he tried their prescribed cure for it. He states that his situa-
tion grew worse and worse and that he was cured from this only after a
mystical experience of travelling through the cosmos, from the highest
point of creation (al-ʿilliyīn) to the lowest of the lowest (asfal al-sāfilīn),

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and to the worlds of divine power and dominion (ʿālam al-jabarūt

wa’l-malakūt). Back on his feet again, he realised that his mystical
experiences were the same as those that the awliyāʾ described in their
sayings, which he always used to rebuke. It was from that point that
he started defending the claims and sayings of the Sufis by referring
to Qurʾan and sunna.116 It is, I think, from this remark that his intention
to write a Qurʾan commentary should be understood: as an attempt to
show that the concepts and ideas of Sufis have a sound basis in the
verses of the Qurʾan; an apology for Sufism in the form of a tafsīr.
A second remarkable passage in his commentary on Q 6:68 deals
with the question of whether it is permissible to sit with the worldly
authorities:

The verse contains a prohibition on sitting with oppressors, with no

distinction between the oppressor (ẓālim), the unjust ( fāsiq) and
the unbeliever (kāfir). His saying {Do not sit after the reminder},117
meaning: after the conveyance of the message regarding the oppres-
sors. I myself have repeatedly been forbidden from the company of
the people of oppression of our time. He [probably one of his teach-
ers in Sufism] once said: ‘Do not set one step with this oppressor’,
and he pointed to a specific person from the leaders of the army.
When I neglected that and aimed to go to the army camp to see him,
and when I put on my shoes, I saw the gate of the town being closed,
which is the gate of the army camp. So I took off my shoes and left
[the idea of] seeing them. Then after a while, in the period of the
sojourn of the Sultan and the leaders in Hamadan, he said: ‘Do not
see any of those oppressors!’ I said: ‘Were I to refrain from seeing
them, then they would accuse me of treachery (tanammus).’ He said:
‘No, commit treachery. Treachery is more beloved to me than seeing
them.’ So I said: ‘A person among them is my sergeant (ʿarīf ), and
we know each other a long time, I certainly must see him.’ He said:
‘Perhaps, but you will be lost.’ And when he gave permission by
his saying ‘perhaps’, I went to see them and they inflicted a lot of
damage upon me, and I became needy of their assistance to me, that
I desired to the extent that those people in whom I put most of my

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hope handed me over to my enemy. This story serves to teach that

the company of oppressors is the ruination of this world and the veil
from the otherworld.118

A couple of tentative conclusions can be drawn from this passage.

First, it confirms that al-Daylamī spent at least some time of his life in
or near the city of Hamadan, the capital (dār al-mulk) of the empire
of the Iraqi Saljūqs, and that he was there at a time when the sultan
and his entourage sojourned there.119 According to Bert Fragner in his
study on Hamadan, this was a yearly habit of the Saljūq sultans during
a couple of weeks in summer. The Saljūq reign of the city ended in
590/1193.120 This makes it plausible that al-Daylamī must have lived
before this date, and that the year of death proposed by Arberry and
Böwering is more plausible than those that place it in later centuries.
Second, it shows that apparently it was the habit for religious
scholars to visit the sultan at that time, and that not to go there was
considered an act of disloyalty, which is probably what the word
tanammus alludes to.121 Furthermore, the fact that he states that his
former sergeant (ʿarīf ) is among the army might mean that al-Daylamī
himself had a history in the army, or at least some form of relationship
with the worldly authorities through patronage. Given the remarkable
ending of this autobiographical anecdote, he apparently got involved
with them again and bitterly regretted it, which made him turn away
from them completely.
Al-Daylamī seems to have been not only a bit of a ‘lone wolf’ and
a minor figure in the history of Sufism, but also relatively detached
from the centre and its institutions. To call him a peripheral figure
would perhaps go too far, but it is clear that he was not close to
the central power of his age.122 The passage just discussed shows a
reluctance to engage oneself with the worldly authorities, and thus
a detachment from the political centre. Marshall Hodgson has stated
that the ‘Middle Periods’, the period in which al-Daylamī lived, may be
defined as the period in which the Islamicate world lacked a central
political and bureaucratic authority.123 The typical population of the
cities was divided into three groups: the amir and his troops and

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dependants, the ordinary people, and the religious classes, especially

the ʿulamāʾ.124 The amirs and the ʿulamāʾ formed essentially independ-
ent institutions, each with its own channels of authority. Sufis were
reluctant to accept revenues from the amir out of fear that it could
consist of illicit (ḥarām) money.125 Bert Fragner confirms this image
in his study on the history of Hamadan: the larger part of the sixth/
twelfth century, in which al-Daylamī most likely lived, was a time of
political instability for the city and the region.126
Besides his Qurʾan commentary, he wrote a fair amount of other
works and treatises, both major and minor, and most of them related
to either kalām or Sufism, or a combination of both. His major works
consist of a collection of hadith, a summary of glosses on Sufi sayings,
a compendium of Sufi cosmology, an epitome of Sufi ethics, a digest of
Sufi theology and a tract on Sufi psychology.127 His works testify to an
engagement with Sufism that is shaped by theological, cosmological
and metaphysical concepts combined with personal visionary mysti-
cal elements. Böwering holds that as such

Daylamī’s writings mark a stage of transition in Sufi thought break-

ing away from karāmāt and legend and turning to wāqiʿāt and
dreams. The visionary world of the mystic is seen as totally real and
fully identical with the spiritual world of the invisible realm.128

His Commentary: Taṣdīq al-maʿārif

Al-Daylamī’s commentary is known by two different titles: Taṣdīq

al-maʿārif (The Confirmation of the Experiential Forms of Knowledge)
and Futūḥ al-raḥmān fī ishārāt al-Qurʾān (Revelations of the Merciful
in the Allusions of the Qurʾan). It is not clear why it has reached us
under two different titles or whether the author himself had chosen
these titles. What is clear though, through the choice of terms such
as maʿārif and ishārāt in the title, is that the works were considered
to be part of the growing number of commentaries that used this
vocabulary to describe its hermeneutics. Indeed, in his introduction
al-Daylamī quotes the same sayings as al-Sulamī about the multiple
meanings of Qurʾanic verses.129

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We have already discussed the ‘conversion’ to Sufism that he

describes in his introduction to the work. He further makes a clear state-
ment of what he intends with this commentary: ‘This is a commentary
on some verses of the Qurʾan, which Sufis need in their affairs, sayings
and acts, and it demonstrates the correctness of their sayings and acts,
and it testifies to the trustworthiness of their sayings in their stations.’130
So the commentary is clearly perceived to be an apology for his and
others’ Sufi ideas, legitimising them by linking them to Qurʾanic verses.
Approximately half of the tafsīr consists of al-Sulamī and his
sources. Al-Daylamī did not just import it, but elaborated on it
as well. The other half is his own. He did not use al-Qushayrī as a
source directly, but does occasionally quote al-Qushayrī’s teacher
al-Daqqāq.131 He sometimes quotes exoteric authorities as well, but it
would be an exaggeration to say that the work is partly exoteric. The
commentary is eclectic in its content and considers, often in a dialectic
manner, many mystical, theological, cosmological and metaphysi-
cal ideas that are also reflected in his other works. It is sometimes
polemical in its tone and content, for example in its argumentation
against the ḥulūliyya (incarnationists) and the philosophers. It seems
that through his commentary he wanted to provide the reader with
argumentative underpinnings for his visionary mysticism.
Unlike the commentaries that went before, his commentary does
not show any clear signs of an intention to teach the work. We do not
have enough biographical information to know whether he had the
institutional affiliation to do this, or even whether he had a group of
students or pupils that he guided on the mystical path, but the lack
of teaching-related terms and style further supports the impression
that al-Daylamī operated largely from outside the institutionalised
framework of Sufism at the time.

Rūzbihān al-Baqlī and his Commentary

His Life, Education and Works

Ṣadr al-Dīn b. Abī Naṣr Rūzbihān al-Fasāʾī al-Daylamī al-Baqlī

al-Shīrāzī (d. 606/1209) was born in 522/1128 in the Persian town

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of Pasā, to a family with Daylamite roots.132 According to his mystical

autobiography, Kashf al-asrār, he grew up in an environment that had
a disregard for religious matters.133 He claimed to have had mystical
visionary experiences from his early childhood. He also claimed that
in his early adulthood he had an ‘unveiling’ (kashf ) that persuaded
him to leave everything behind and wander through the desert in
a state of ecstasy (wajd) for one and a half years. He is said to have
joined the Sufis in a hospice (ribāṭ) around 538–9/1143–4, where
he obtained his Sufi education and disciplinary training, and memo-
rised the Qurʾan. It is not clear where this happened or how long this
period lasted, but it may have been in Shiraz. It was probably also in
Shiraz that he received his training in the religious sciences from the
leading scholars of his time. After that, there is a gap of two decades
in his biography, in which he allegedly travelled extensively through
Syria, Iraq, Kirman and made the pilgrimage to Mecca.134 He finally
settled in Shiraz, where he established his own lodge in 560/1165.
He became a preacher at the grand mosque, the masjid-i ʿatīq, and
spent the rest of his life preaching and teaching until he passed away
in 606/1209.135
Rūzbihān lived in a time of political unrest. The region of Shiraz
nominally fell under Saljūq rule, but their central government was
in decline. The political power was largely shifting towards semi-
autonomous atabegs who had started their own hereditary rule in
Fārs.136 This process took place during Rūzbihān’s lifetime and caused
instability. It is not really clear how this might have affected him.137
There are some, possibly hagiographic, anecdotes that speak of a
positive relationship with the atabegs.138
He was very productive as a writer, in both Arabic and Persian.
Around thirty Sufi works are ascribed to him. Besides his numer-
ous Sufi works, he wrote treatises in several exoteric Islamic sciences
as well, among which are an exoteric Qurʾan commentary, works
of hadith, Islamic law and its fundamentals, Arabic language and
grammar, and creed.139 His Sufi works testify to an ecstatic visionary
approach to Sufism, expressed in a dense prosaic style. They contain
rich descriptions of theophanies (tajalliyāt) and mystical states of

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ecstasy. His preference for ecstatic utterances earned him the title
shaykh-i shaṭṭāḥ (Doctor Ecstaticus).140

His Commentary: ʿArāʾis al-bayān fī ḥaqāʾiq al-Qurʾān

Although it is an important and in many ways interesting work, the

ʿArāʾis al-bayān fī ḥaqāʾiq al-Qurʾān has not yet been the subject of
a monograph as the works of al-Qushayrī and Maybudī have been.
We are still waiting on a proper and in-depth analysis of Rūzbihān’s
Qurʾanic hermeneutics and the complex system of thought he tried to
link to the Qurʾan in his commentary. This will be a crucial enterprise
for a better understanding of Rūzbihān’s life and works. In this study,
I can offer only a modest first step towards that goal.
As in al-Sulamī’s works, Rūzbihān’s commentary contains an
introductory statement. There he explains his motivation for embark-
ing on this project in his typical ecstatic style:

I did not become occupied with this affair until after experiential
knowledge and divine wisdom had overwhelmed my heart … [and]
when I found that the pre-eternal Word had no limit in the outer and
the inner, and that none of God’s creation had reached its perfection
and the ultimate degree of its meanings – because underlying each
of Its letters is an ocean of secrets and a river of lights.141

He subsequently also quotes the same sayings on the multiple mean-

ings of the Qurʾan that al-Sulamī mentions in his introduction.142
Motivated by these sayings and the realisation that the meanings
of the Qurʾan are endless, he decided to compose his commentary
with ‘handfuls of pre-eternal wisdom and post-eternal indications of
which the understanding of the scholar and the mind of the philoso-
pher fall short’.143 He considers this to be following in the footsteps
of the awliyāʾ and prophets, and expresses his debt to commentators
who have preceded him. He states that he wanted to be brief and
that he therefore left out many of their sayings. Where he mentions
them, however, he does it after his own sayings, to seek their blessing
through it.144
The content of ʿArāʾis al-bayān is entirely mystical and leaves out

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exoteric aspects of interpretation. The work follows the sequence of

the Qurʾan from Sūrat al-Fātiḥa to Sūrat al-Nās. Rūzbihān does not
comment on every Qurʾanic verse, but only on verses that he deems
relevant. He first gives his own commentary and only then mentions
the opinions of his predecessors. He relies heavily upon al-Sulamī’s
material and the Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt by al-Qushayrī, whom he quotes as
al-ustādh (the master). In the following chapters we will have ample
space to see what this looks like in practice.

Conclusion

Have we now come closer to an understanding of what a ‘Sufi’ Qurʾan

commentary entails? Are we justified in speaking of Sufi tafsīr as a sep-
arate genre? On the one hand, we see a great variety in hermeneutical
approaches and literary style, which clearly gives every tafsīr its own
distinctive identity. While al-Sulamī was first and foremost a collec-
tor and organiser of existing esoteric material, al-Qushayrī smoothly
combined a sober mystical approach with theological and philological
concerns, in a very sophisticated level of Arabic. Maybudī gave a lot of
space to the exoteric sciences and had a more literary artistic and less
sober style in his mystical parts in Persian. With al-Daylamī we see
yet again a new dimension, with his dialectic-theological and vision-
ary mysticism, and the disappearance of exoteric commentary. In the
work of Rūzbihān we see a continuation and amplification of this
strictly esoteric style. He is hardly comparable to his predecessors in
his ecstatic, visionary flowing style and content. While the works of
al-Sulamī, al-Qushayrī and Maybudī were probably intended to teach
and to guide and train pupils, it is doubtful whether this was the
intention of the last two authors. There seems to be a shift between
the former and the latter in authorial intent in this respect, as well as
in style and content.
Nevertheless, there is continuity as well. Drawing upon the same
authoritative statements of the likes of ʿAlī and Jaʿfar, all seem to agree
upon certain hermeneutical principles and the authors use more or
less the same vocabulary to signify these principles.145 The fact that
they all fall back on the same earlier authorities provides a strong

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reason to consider their works as a separate genre and to assume that

the authors themselves considered them as such. This makes these
works genealogical: the authors placed themselves in a tradition
of scholarship and only propounded their own ideas and allusions
against the background of earlier authorities. Al-Sulamī collected
all the sayings about Qurʾanic verses made by earlier generations of
mystics. Al-Qushayrī cited al-Sulamī. Maybudī cited, albeit through
the lost tafsīr of al-Anṣārī, both al-Qushayrī and al-Sulamī. Al-Daylamī
cited al-Qushayrī’s teacher al-Daqqāq, as well as al-Sulamī. Rūzbihān
cited al-Qushayrī and al-Sulamī.146 It is evident from this that al-Sulamī
and al-Qushayrī started something new within the genre of tafsīr,
something that the later authors felt the need to relate to in order to
give legitimacy to their own additions. How this genealogical nature
of the genre works in practice, and what it teaches us about the theo-
logical and mystical choices of the authors, we further examine in the
case studies in the second part of this study.
Although it is certainly justifiable to conceive of these works as a
genre on these grounds, to conceive of it as a genre of ‘Sufi’ tafsīr does
remain problematic. The authors themselves did not once use the
term ‘Sufi’ to describe their own works or hermeneutical method.147
The fact that all authors can be identified as Sufis cannot be the only
criterion to classify these works as Sufi tafsīrs. After all, Sufis also
wrote works of tafsīr according to conventional methods of inter-
pretation, focusing on the apparent (ẓāhir) meanings of the Qurʾanic
text – sometimes even interwoven within their ishārī works, as in
the cases of al-Qushayrī and Maybudī. The issue of terminology thus
remains unresolved. We will get back to this issue at later points in
this study.
In this chapter I have offered some biographical context to the
five main authors of this study and their works. It may be clear that
all authors were situated quite close to the ‘centre’, all functioning as
scholars of the ‘outward’ (ẓāhir) disciplines of religious knowledge
alongside their specialism in Sufism, and to varying degrees (with
al-Daylamī as the exception) maintaining constructive relationships
with the worldly powers of their time. In the following chapters I

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hope to show how their approach to the Qurʾan in their commentaries

worked out in practice, and how their wider ‘circles of influence’ are
reflected in their ideas on the hereafter and the vision of God. We will
now make the first step in this endeavour, by discussing their ideas on
Paradise and Hell as reflected in their commentaries.

Notes
1 Hodgson, Venture of Islam, 2:6–7.
2 Richard W. Bulliet, ‘The Political-Religious History of Nishapur in the
Eleventh Century’, in Islamic Civilization, 950–1150: A Colloquium
Published under the Auspices of the Near Eastern History Group, Oxford,
the Near East Center, University of Pennsylvania, ed. D. S. Richards
(London: Bruno Cassirer/Faber, 1973), 72.
3 For an introductory overview of Sufism in this period, see Hamid
Dabashi, ‘Historical Conditions of Persian Sufism during the Seljuk
Period’, in The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 5: The Saljuq and Mongol
Periods, ed. J. A. Boyle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968),
137–74. Though overstating the rivalry and opposition between ‘jurists’
and ‘Sufis’ – many Sufis were, after all, also jurists and vice versa – he
gives a proper description of some key figures and their relations with
their social and political environments.
4 The most important primary sources for the understanding of Nishapur
in this period are Taʾrīkh Naysābūr by Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad
al-Ḥākim (d. 405/1015) and Siyāq li-taʾrīkh Naysabūr by Abū’l-Ḥasan
ʿAbd al-Ghāfir al-Fārisī, both published in facsimile in Richard N. Frye,
The Histories of Nishapur (The Hague: Mouton, 1965). These are the
most important sources for the standard work by Richard W. Bulliet,
The Patricians of Nishapur: A Study in Medieval Islamic Social History
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972) and the chapters
on Nishapur in Clifford E. Bosworth, The Ghaznavids: Their Empire
in Afghanistan and Eastern Iran, 94–1040 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1963).
5 Bosworth, Ghaznavids, 153.
6 Ibid., 162.
7 EI2, s.v. ‘Nīshāpūr’, by E. Honigmann [C. E. Bosworth], 8:62–4; EIr, s.v.
‘Nishapur’, by C. E. Bosworth (accessed 13 November 2014).

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8 Bulliet, Patricians of Nishapur, 16–18.

9 Ibid., 26–7, 75.
10 Ibid., 76.
11 Ibid., 15; Bosworth, Ghaznavids, 165.
12 Bulliet, Patricians of Nishapur, 11–14.
13 Wilferd Madelung, Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran (Albany, NY:
Bibliotheca Persica, 1988): 27–30; Alessandro Bausani, ‘Religion in the
Saljuq Period’, in The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 5: The Saljuq and
Mongol Periods, ed. J. A. Boyle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1968), 283–90.
14 Under Saljūq rule this relative independence would reduce and reli-
gious institutions became more and more patronised and directed by
the state. In Nishapur this was also felt during the reign of Niẓām al-
Mulk (d. 485/1092). See Bulliet, Patricians of Nishapur, 74–5. For a
description of the earlier relative independence of religious authority
from the political authority, see Ira Lapidus, ‘The Separation of State
and Religion in the Development of Early Islamic Society’, IJMES 6
(1975): 363–85.
15 Madelung, Religious Trends, 32–4; Bulliet, Patricians of Nishapur, 30,
33, 37–9. This persecution, although primarily targeted at the Shāfiʿīs,
whose leaders were all Ashʿarīs by that time, seems to have been more
framed as a conflict over the Ashʿarī creed, since it was easier to dis-
miss the other as heretical over credal issues than over legal differ-
ences. Bulliet still holds it to have been primarily a social conflict, albeit
framed as a religious one.
16 Margaret Malamud, ‘The Politics of Heresy in Medieval Khurasan:
The Karramiyya in Nishapur’, Iranian Studies 27, no. 1 (1994): 43–5.
Not much is known about the exact content of the teachings of the
Karrāmiyya, and what we do know is mostly through the eyes of its
opponents. The most important work of its founder, Abū ʿAbd Allāh
Muḥammad b. Karrām (d. 255/869), ʿAdhāb al-qabr, is lost. Some
lesser known texts have been analysed by Josef van Ess, Ungenützte
Texte zur Karrāmiyya: Eine Materialsammlung (Heidelberg: Carl
Winter Universitätsverlag, 1980). They seem to have had their own
views on both credal matters (very literalist) and jurisprudence, thus
offering a complete alternative to the prevailing trends in Sunnism
and Shīʿism to its followers. See Clifford E. Bosworth, ‘The Rise of the

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Karāmiyyah in Khurasan’, The Muslim World 50 (1960): 5–14; TG, 4:346,

531.
17 Bulliet, ‘Political-Religious History of Nishapur’, 74–6.
18 Bulliet, Patricians of Nishapur, 39.
19 Madelung, Religious Trends, 45; EI2, s.v. ‘Khānḳāh’, by J. Chabbi,
4:1025; Malamud, ‘Politics of Heresy’, 41–2, 48; EIr, s.v. ‘Ḵānaqāh’, by
G. Böwering and M. Melvin-Koushki (accessed on 2 November 2014).
20 Heinz Halm, ‘Die Anfänge der Madrasa’, ZDMG, supplement 3, no. 1, XIX
Deutsche Orientalistentag (1975): 439.
21 EI2, s.v. ‘Madrasa’, by R. Hillenbrand, 5:1126. The introduction of
madrasahs is often associated with Niẓām al-Mulk. Whether this
is correct is part of an ongoing debate. Some have claimed that the
institution is at least two centuries older than that, as the history of
Nishapur shows. Niẓām al-Mulk can be credited with popularising the
practice among leaders outside of Khurasan however. See the list of
the madrasahs of Nishapur in Bulliet, Patricians of Nishapur, 249–55.
See also EIr, s.v. ‘Education’, by C. Melchert, 4 ‘The Medieval Madrasa’
(accessed on 8 November 2014); George Makdisi, ‘Muslim Institutions
of Learning in Eleventh-Century Baghdad,’ BSOAS, 24 (1961): 1–56;
Abdel-Latif Tibawi, ‘Origin and Character of al-Madrasah’, BSOAS 25
(1962): 225–38; Halm, ‘Die Anfänge der Madrasa’.
22 Bulliet, Patricians of Nishapur, 48–54.
23 Ibid., 55–6.
24 Lutz Berger, ‘Geschieden von allem ausser Gott’: Sufik und Welt bei Abū
ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān as-Sulamī (936–1021) (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag,
1998), 12. For a thorough description of the development of Sufism in
this period, see Karamustafa, Formative Period.
25 Jacqueline Chabbi, ‘Remarques sur le développement historique des
mouvements ascétiques et mystiques au Khurasan: IIIe/IXe siècle–
IVe/Xe siècle’, SI 46 (1977): 29–38; Christopher Melchert, ‘Sufis and
Competing Movements in Nishapur’, Iran 39 (2001): 237–47. See
also Harith Bin Ramli, ‘The Rise of Early Sufism: A Survey of Recent
Scholarship on its Social Dimensions’, History Compass 8, no. 11 (2010):
1299–315.
26 Bulliet, Patricians of Nishapur, 41–2. In Nishapur the rise of Sufism and
the absorption of the Malāmatī strand is clearly visible in the devel-
opment of onomastic practices, as described by Chabbi, ‘Mouvements

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ascétiques’, 29–38. A convenient table of these data is provided by

Bulliet, Patricians of Nishapur, 41.
27 Karamustafa, Formative Period, 60–2; Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, 99.
28 See Margaret Malamud, ‘Sufi Organizations and Structures of Authority
in Medieval Nishapur’, IJMES 26, no. 3 (1994): 427–42; Melchert, ‘Sufis
and Competing Movements’.
29 The main source for our knowledge of the Malāmatiyya is a descrip-
tion by al-Sulamī in his Risālat al-Malāmatiyya. Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār
also prominently figures in other works of al-Sulamī, among which his
Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr.
30 EI2, s.v. ‘Malāmatiyya’, by C. H. Imber, 6:223–8.
31 Berger, Sufik und Welt, 33; Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Muḥammad b.
al-Ḥusayn al-Sulamī, Kitāb Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, ed. Johannes Pederson
(Leiden: Brill, 1960).
32 Chabbi, ‘Mouvements ascétiques’, 67–72; Karamustafa, Formative
Period, 61.
33 For a criticism of this narrative, see Malamud, ‘Sufi Organizations’.
Bernd Radtke has argued, with reason, that the narrative of a conflict
between Sufism and the exoteric sciences (Radtke uses ‘the Law’) only
to be reconciled by al-Ghazālī is ‘a particularly tenacious and longlived
cliché about the history of Sufism’. He claims that this narrative is a
form of suppression and projection to create ‘a form of “warmer Islam”
with which the expectant can identify’. Radtke, ‘Between Projection
and Suppression’, 78. See also Radtke, ‘Warum ist der Sufi orthodox?’,
302–7. Of course, various aspects of Sufism have never become com-
pletely uncontroversial, and its place within the Islamic mainstream
has continually been contested throughout its history. See Fred de Jong
and Bernd Radtke, eds, Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen Centuries
of Controversies and Polemics (Leiden: Brill, 1999).
34 Berger, Sufik und Welt, 12.
35 Malamud, ‘Sufi Organizations’, 427–30.
36 Bulliet states that the Shāfiʿī intellectual scene in Nishapur was more
‘progressive’ than the Ḥanafī milieu, and as a consequence more open to
relatively new trends such as Sufism and Ashʿarism. Bulliet, Patricians
of Nishapur, 39. Melchert disagrees with him and states that it has more
to do with the roots of Shāfiʿism in earlier traditionist scholarship that
appealed to the Sufis. Melchert, ‘Sufis and Competing Movements’, 243.

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37 Claude Gilliot, ‘L’exégèse du Coran en Asie Centrale et au Khorasan’, SI

89 (1999): 130, 138.
38 Walid Saleh, therefore, even speaks of the ‘Nishapuri school’.
Walid Saleh, ‘The Last of the Nishapuri School of Tafsīr: Al-Wāḥidī
(d. 468/1076) and his Significance in the History of Qurʿanic Exegesis’,
JAOS 126, no.2 (2006): 225–6.
39 Gilliot, ‘Exégèse du Coran’, 146–7. A Karrāmī tafsīr by an unknown
author has been identified by Aron Zysow, ‘Two Unrecognized Karrāmī
Texts’, JAOS 108, no. 4 (1988): 577–87. Saleh believes that al-Thaʿlabī’s
commentary also bears traces of Karrāmī tafsīr. Saleh, Formation, 6.
40 Saleh, Formation, 63; Walid Saleh, ‘Word’, in Key Themes for the Study of
Islam, ed. Jamal J. Elias (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2010), 361.
41 Saleh, ‘Word’, 374.
42 Ibid., 372–3. The idea that Sufi commentaries were composed to create
like-mindedness among an audience has been posed by Elias, ‘Ṣūfī
Tafsīr Reconsidered’, 50.
43 Saleh, Formation, 18–20.
44 Ibid., 20–2.
45 Berger doubts this, since this is only mentioned in much later sources.
He thinks it is a topos. Berger, Sufik und Welt, 41.
46 Gerhard Böwering, ‘The Qurʾān Commentary of al-Sulamī’, in Islamic
Studies Presented to Charles J. Adams, eds Wael B. Hallaq and Donald
P. Little (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 43–5. The most encompassing study on
the life and works of al-Sulamī, and a standard work for decades to
come, is Jean-Jacques Thibon, L’œuvre d’Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī
(325/937–412/1021) et la formation du soufisme (Damascus: Institut
français du Proche-Orient, 2009).
47 A duwayra is a small dār, or ‘house’, and is considered to be an equiva-
lent of the khānaqah.
48 Böwering, ‘Commentary of al-Sulamī’, 43–5; Berger, Sufik und Welt,
35–47; Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, 125–7.
49 Karamustafa, Formative Period, 60–3.
50 Berger, Sufik und Welt, 42.
51 Böwering, ‘Commentary of al-Sulamī’, 42–3; Godlas, ‘Ṣūfism’, 351–2;
Ateș, İşârî tefsîr okulu, 3–8. For a critique on these periodisations, see
Elias, ‘Ṣūfī Tafsīr Reconsidered’, 43–4.
52 Nwyia argues that in an earlier stage al-Sulamī was less concerned with

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‘defending’ Sufism and reconciling it with the exoteric sciences than he

was in his later works, notably the Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya. Since Ḥaqāʾiq
al-tafsīr does not bear marks of that concern, he considered it to be an
earlier work. Paul Nwyia, Trois oeuvres inédites de mystiques musul-
mans Šaqīq al-Balhī, Ibn ʿAṭāʾ, Niffarī (Beirut: Dar El-Machreq, 1973),
26; Böwering, ‘Commentary of al-Sulamī’, 49.
53 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:19.
54 The identity of Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad is problematic. It is tempting to
identify him as Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, but this cannot be done with absolute
certainty. For a discussion of this problem, see Gerhard Böwering,
‘The Major Sources of Sulamī’s Minor Qurʾān Commentary’, Oriens 35
(1996): 35–56. Nwyia has pointed out that, although we’re not certain
from when these sayings attributed to Jaʿfar hail, we can at least say
with certainty that they correspond with the technical vocabulary of
third-century Sufis, and that they thus are a primordial source for the
study of the formation of mystical language in Islam. Paul Nwyia, ‘Le
tafsīr mystique attribué à Jaʿfar Ṣādiq’, ed. Paul Nwyia, Mélanges de
l’Université Saint-Joseph 43 (1962): 201–6. Massignon states that it was
probably Dhū’l-Nūn al-Miṣrī who first edited the sayings attributed to
him. Massignon, Essay, 206. Böwering is of the opinion that the works
of al-Sulamī do not testify of this. Böwering, ‘Major Sources’, 56. Mayer
concludes from the thematic coherence and consistency of thought of
the sayings in the Sulamī recension that it is very likely that the corpus
has emanated as a unity. Farhana Mayer, trans., Spiritual Gems: The
Mystical Qurʾān Commentary Ascribed to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq as Contained in
Sulamī’s ‘Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr’ from the Text of Paul Nwyia (Louisville, KY:
Fons Vitae, 2011), xxii.
55 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:19–20.
56 Sands, Ṣūfī Commentaries, 8–13. Sands gives an overview of the discus-
sions among medieval Islamic scholars on the legitimacy of Sufi com-
mentaries and the role of these quotes in these discussions.
57 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:19–23.
58 Ibid., 1:20.
59 Ibid., 1:21.
60 Ibid., 1:23.
61 Ibid., 1:23.
62 Sulamī, Ziyādāt.

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63 Ibid., 19.
64 Ibid., 1.
65 Ibid., 2.
66 Wolfhart Heinrichs, ‘Contacts between Scriptural Hermeneutics and
Literary Theory in Islam: The Case of Majāz’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte
der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaft 7 (1991–2): 253. Quoted in
Saleh, Formation, 67.
67 Sulamī, Ziyādāt, 1.
68 Saleh, Formation, 16.
69 Al-Sulamī lived in a period in which the Shāfiʿīs of Nishapur were not yet
exclusively Ashʿarī in credal matters. It is not clear whether al-Sulamī
adhered to this creed, although he surely had scholarly connections
with the Ashʿarīs of his time. Berger, Sufik und Welt, 42.
70 Thibon, L’oeuvre, 128.
71 Melchert stresses that the terms ahl al-ḥadīth (people of hadith) and ahl
al-raʾy (people of reasoning) had not yet disappeared from the scene in
the tenth century, and that the process of absorbing local traditions was
still going on. Melchert, ‘Sufis and Competing Movements’, 243.
72 Böwering, ‘Commentary of al-Sulamī’, 50–1.
73 Ibid., 49–50.
74 The comparison with al-Ṭabarī is made by Böwering, ‘Commentary of
al-Sulamī’, 56; Böwering, Mystical Vision, 110. When one accepts the
opinion of Walid Saleh – which I do – that to understand the impact of
a commentary one must trace its influence on later commentaries, it is
indeed justified to compare al-Sulamī with al-Ṭabarī. All commentaries
under scrutiny in this study clearly relied on al-Sulamī’s commentary
as a source. Saleh, Formation, 11.
75 None of these early figures independently left behind a work of Qurʾanic
commentary that is known to us in its original form, and indeed probably
only al-Tustarī, al-Wāsiṭī and Ibn ʿAṭāʾ composed a work in the format
of the genre. Al-Sulamī’s works are our main source to reconstruct
them. An exception to this is the tafsīr of Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896),
which has survived more or less independently, albeit in the form of
notes and additional narrations by his students. See Böwering, Mystical
Vision, 128–35. Paul Nwyia has reconstructed the tafsīrs of Jaʿfar and
Ibn ʿAṭāʾ based on al-Sulamī. See Nwyia, ‘Tafsīr mystique’, 181–230 and
Nwyia, Trois oeuvres, 23–182.

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76 Böwering, ‘Commentary of al-Sulamī’, 56.

77 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:19–20.
78 Translation from Saleh, ‘Nishapuri School’, 232; Böwering, ‘Commentary
of al-Sulamī’, 52. This criticism of al-Sulamī’s work continued long after
that. In his Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn, al-Suyūṭī categorised al-Sulamī under
the innovators in tafsīr and said about him: ‘I put him in this category
because his commentary is not praiseworthy.’ He quotes al-Dhahabī
(d. 748/1348) to have stated, ‘If only he had not written it. It con-
tains alteration of the scripture (taḥrīf ) and Qarmatianism (qarmaṭa)’
(Suyūṭī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn, 97–8). The Qarmatians were a third-/
ninth-century Muslim sect associated with the Ismāʿīlīs, who believed
the Qurʾan should be read allegorically. The term qarmaṭa was later
used to designate Ismāʿīlī-like esoteric groups. EI2, s.v. ‘Ḥamdān
Qarmaṭ’, by W. Madelung, 3:123–4. See also Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:11–12.
79 Dāwūdī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn, 1:344–52; Richard Gramlich, trans., Das
Sendschreiben al-Qušayrīs über das Sufitum (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner
Verlag, 1989), 11; Nguyen, Sufi Master, 23–30.
80 Nguyen, Sufi Master, 32–6. For a list of al-Qushayrī’s teachers and the
subjects of study, see Gramlich, Sendschreiben, 12–16.
81 For a translation of this document, see Heinz Halm, ‘Der Wesir
al-Kundurī und die Fitna von Nīšāpūr’, Die Welt des Orients 6, no. 2
(1971): 214–15.
82 Nguyen, Sufi Master, 40–5; Gramlich, Sendschreiben, 14.
83 Nguyen, Sufi Master, 65–6.
84 For a scholarly translation into English of this work, see Alexander D.
Knysh, trans., Al-Qushayri’s Epistle on Sufism: ‘Al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya
fī ʿilm al-tasawwuf’ (Reading: Garnet Publishing, 2007). For a thorough
and eloquent German translation, see Gramlich, Sendschreiben.
85 Meier borrows this distinction from Ibn ʿAbbād al-Rundī (d. 1390).
Fritz Meier, ‘Khurasan and the End of Classical Sufism’, in Essays on
Islamic Piety and Mysticism, trans. John O’Kane with editorial assistance
from Bernd Radtke (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 217.
86 Nguyen, Sufi Master, 75–9.
87 For a discussion of the authenticity of two existing manuscripts com-
monly identified as al-Tafsīr al-kabīr, see Martin Nguyen, ‘Al-Tafsīr
al-kabīr: An Investigation of al-Qushayrī’s Major Qurʾan Commentary’,
JSS 2 (2013): 17–45.

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88 Nguyen, Sufi Master, 94–5.

89 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, 1:41. The translation of the fragment is, with slight
adaptations, by Nguyen, Sufi Master, 122.
90 Nguyen, Sufi Master, 122.
91 Ibid., 123–5.
92 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, 1:41.
93 Nguyen, Sufi Master, 127.
94 Kristin Z. Sands, ‘On the Subtleties of Method and Style in the Laṭāʾif
al-ishārāt of al-Qushayrī’, JSS 2 (2013): 7–8.
95 This is noted by Keeler, ‘Ṣūfī Tafsīr as a Mirror’, 3. She contrasts it
with Sahl al-Tustarī’s commentary, which she describes as the result of
ecstatic authorship.
96 Nguyen, Sufi Master, 130–1; Ibrāhīm Basyūnī, al-Imām al-Qushayrī:
sīratuhu, āthāruhu, madhhabuhu fī’l-taṣawwuf (Cairo: Majmaʿat
al-buḥūth al-islāmiyya, 1972), 53; Sands, ‘Subtleties’, 15.
97 For the distinction between taʿlīm and tarbiyya, see Meier, ‘Khurasan’,
190–2.
98 EIr, s.v. ‘Meybodi’, by A. Keeler (accessed on 30 September 2013).
Maybud is a town near Yazd. The tomb of Maybudī’s possible father,
Jamāl al-Islām Abū Saʿīd b. Aḥmad b. Mehrizad (d. 1087), is situated
there, which makes it plausible that this is indeed the place of birth of
Rashīd al-Dīn.
99 EI2, s.v. ‘Kākūyids’, by C. E. Bosworth, 4:465–7.
100 EIr, s.v. ‘Meybodi’, by A. Keeler (accessed on 30 September 2013).
Keeler believes he sojourned in Herat for some time, because he uses
the dialect of Herat in his commentary.
101 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 18–19.
102 Maybudī, Kashf, 1:123; 2:237; 3:29, 169; 4:111; 8:507. See also EIr,
s.v. ‘Meybodi’, by A. Keeler (accessed on 30 September 2013); Annabel
Keeler, ‘Mystical Theology and the Traditionalist Hermeneutics of
Maybudī’s Kashf al-asrār’, in Sufism and Theology, ed. Ayman Shihadeh
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 15–30.
103 EIr, s.v. ‘Meybodi’, by A. Keeler (accessed on 30 September 2013). ʿAbd
Allāh al-Anṣārī is known for his staunch position against kalām, a posi-
tion that Maybudī seems to have shared with him. Keeler, ‘Mystical
Theology’, 16–17.
104 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 110. For a study of the theme of love in

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Ḥanbalism, see Joseph N. Bell, Love Theory in Later Ḥanbalite Islam

(Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1979).
105 Maybudī, Kashf, 1:1. Translation from Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 40.
106 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 55–7.
107 This was not unusual in Maybudī’s time. For early translations of the
Qurʾan into Persian and their relation to the genre of tafsīr, see Travis
Zadeh, The Vernacular Qurʾan: Translation and the Rise of Persian
Exegesis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Zadeh also treats
Maybudī in this work.
108 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 19.
109 Ibid., 20–2.
110 Maybudī, Kashf, 10:679; Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 41–2.
111 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 50–1.
112 He is not mentioned in the Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn of al-Dāwūdī, al-Suyūṭī
or al-Adnarwī. Thus far only a few articles have appeared on al-Daylamī
and the extant manuscripts of his works and these only scratch the
surface of some of his ideas and do not contain substantial biographical
details. See Arthur J. Arberry, ‘The Works of Shams al-Dīn al-Dailamī’,
BSOAS 29, no. 1 (1966): 49–56; Gerhard Böwering, ‘The Writings of
Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī’, Islamic Studies 26, no. 3 (1987): 231–6.
In recent scholarship, some specific aspects of his works have been
analysed, but these studies have not revealed new biographical mate-
rial. Elizabeth R. Alexandrin, ‘Witnessing the Lights of the Heavenly
Dominion: Dreams, Visions and the Mystical Exegeses of Shams al-Dīn
al-Daylamī,’ in Dreams and Visions in Islamic Societies, eds Özgen Felek
and Alexander D. Knysh (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2012), 215–32;
Elizabeth R. Alexandrin, ‘“Minding the Body”: Corporeality in Shams
al-Dīn al-Daylamī’s Treatises’, Ishraq: Islamic Philosophy Yearbook 4
(2013): 526–39.
113 Arberry, ‘Works of al-Dailamī’, 4.
114 Böwering, ‘Writings of al-Daylamī’, 231–2.
115 These writings must not have been too impressive to the scholarly
audience, since it is only his Sufi writings that are still known to us in
manuscript form and apparently were deemed worthy of copying and
spreading.
116 Abū Thābit Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī, ‘Kitāb al-tafsīr al-Daylamī’, Yeni
Cami, Istanbul, MS 57, fols 1b­–2a.

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117 When parts of Qurʾan commentaries are presented in translation, the

Qurʾanic text that is commented upon has been placed between curly
brackets. This is to stay true to the style of the original commentary as
much as possible.
118 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fols 45a­–b.
119 One manuscript, Radd ʿalā al-ḥulūliyya, indeed adds the nisba
al-Hamadānī to his name, which may show that his relationship to the
city was more than superficial. Abū Thābit Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī,
‘Radd ʿalā al-ḥulūliyya’, Ibrahim Efendi, Istanbul, MS 860, fol.
108a.
120 Bert Fragner, Geschichte der Stadt Hamadān und ihrer Umgebung in den
ersten Sechs Jahrhunderten nach der Hiğra – Von d. Eroberung durch die
Araber bis zum Untergang d. ‘ʿIrāq-Selčuken’ (Vienna: Verlag Notring,
1972), 178.
121 This habit is indeed confirmed in other studies. On the relationship
of the Saljūq rulers with the scholarly class and Sufi authorities, see
Deborah G. Tor, ‘“Sovereign and Pious”: The Religious Life of the
Great Seljuq Sultans’, in The Seljuqs: Politics, Society and Culture, eds
Christian Lange and Songül Mecit (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 2011), 49–53; Dabashi, ‘Historical Conditions’; Omid Safi, The
Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam: Negotiating Ideology and
Religious Inquiry (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press,
2006).
122 Fragner also points out how Hamadan more and more became a centre
of ‘unorthodox’ movements. Fragner, Stadt Hamadān, 128.
123 Hodgson, Venture of Islam, 2:68.
124 Ibid., 2:109–10.
125 Ibid., 96.
126 Fragner, Stadt Hamadān, 111–33.
127 Böwering, ‘Writings of al-Daylamī’, 232. Unfortunately, we do not have
the scope in this study to give a thorough representation of the ideas he
exposes in these works. All of these works are still waiting to be criti-
cally edited and to be properly studied. Showing the personal visionary
character of the works in combination with cosmology, theology and
metaphysics may be rewarding for a better understanding of the shifts
that take place in Sufi thought in this period. According to Böwering,
‘Daylamī bridges the gap in 6th/12th century Sufism between ʿAyn

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al-Quḍāt al-Ḥamadānī and Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrā and foreshadows

ideas that emerge in the Kubrawī school and the Ḥurūfī sect.’ Böwering,
‘Writings of al-Daylamī’, 235.
128 Böwering, ‘Writings of al-Daylamī’, 235.
129 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fol. 2a.
130 Ibid., fol. 1b.
131 Böwering, ‘Writings of al-Daylamī’, 232.
132 Not everyone is in agreement on the year of birth. For a detailed discus-
sion of all possibilities, see Godlas, ‘The ʿArāʾis al-bayān’, 4–11.
133 For a critical edition of this autobiography, see Firoozeh Papan-Matin
and Michael Fishbein, eds, The Unveiling of Secrets ‘Kashf al-asrār’: The
Visionary Autobiography of Rūzbihān al-Baqlī (1128–1209 ad) (Leiden:
Brill, 2006). For a translation into English, see Carl W. Ernst, trans. The
Unveiling of Secrets: Diary of a Sufi Master (Chapel Hill, NC: Parvardigar
Press, 1997).
134 Ernst, Ruzbihan, 1–6; EI2, s.v. ‘Rūzbihān’, by C. W. Ernst, 8:651–2.
135 Paul Ballanfat, Quatre traités inédits de Ruzbehân Baqlî Shîrâzî: textes
arabes avec un commentaire (Tehran: Institut français de recherche en
Iran, 1988), 71–5.
136 EI2, s.v. ‘Atabak’, by C. Cahen, 1:731; Godlas, ‘The ʿArāʾis al-bayān’, 1–3.
137 Godlas suggests, without presenting convincing evidence, that some of
his mystical conversions and wanderings may have had something to
do with this unrest. Godlas, ‘The ʿArāʾis al-bayān’, 4. In Kashf al-asrār,
Rūzbihān mentions the troubled, epidemic times in which he lives and
asks God to keep him away from the rulers: ‘Then I asked God most high
that he free me from entering the courts of princes. After dawn, one of
God’s orders (glory be to him) came down, and he freed me from seeing
them or associating with them at that time’ (Baqlī’s Kashf translated in
Ernst, Unveiling of Secrets, 141).
138 Ibid., 13–16; Ernst, Ruzbihan, 132–4.
139 For a list of his works, see appendix A in Ernst, Ruzbihan, 151–60.
140 EI2, s.v. ‘Rūzbihān’, by C. W. Ernst, 8:651–2.
141 Translation from Godlas, ‘The ʿArāʾis al-bayān’, 60.
142 Ibid., 60–4.
143 Ibid., 65.
144 Ibid., 65–6.
145 For an overview of the continuity in these principles and their

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­ocabulary, see Sands, Ṣūfī Commentaries, 35–46 and Keeler, Sufi

v
Hermeneutics, 69–74.
146 For the influence of most notably al-Qushayrī on the works of Maybudī
and Rūzbihān, see Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 22, 34 n. 135, 90–2, and
Alan Godlas, ‘Influences of Qushayrī’s Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt on Sufi Qurʾanic
Commentaries, Particularly Rūzbihān al-Baqlī’s ʿArāʾis al-bayān and the
Kubrawi al-Taʾwīlāt al-najmiyya’, JSS 2 (2013): 78–92. Godlas suggests
that Rūzbihān’s purpose in quoting al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī was
‘to demonstrate the presence of a historical tradition of Sufi esoteric
Qurʾan commentary of which he was a continuing and contributing
member’ (Godlas, ‘Influences’, 87).
147 This is also noted by Sands, Ṣūfī Commentaries, 4.

82

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3
The Ultimate Boundary Crossing:
Paradise and Hell in the Commentaries

Introduction

In this chapter we give an overview of the dominant eschatological

themes found in the commentaries, starting with a discussion of the
existing literature on eschatology in the formative and ‘classical’ peri-
ods of Sufism and offering a typology of themes. After this, we analyse
sayings about the Qurʾanic verses on Paradise and Hell collected in
al-Sulamī’s Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, and to a lesser extent in Ziyādāt Ḥaqāʾiq
al-tafsīr. Through his works we try to reconstruct the developments in
Sufi thought on Paradise and Hell in the formative period. From there,
we move on to the other four commentaries. We seek to understand if,
how and why conceptions of the hereafter changed, what main topics
and themes are shared by all commentaries, as well as any significant
differences between the approaches of the commentators towards
the hereafter.

Attitudes towards the Hereafter in the Formative Period

of Sufism

In a recent study on Sufi eschatological conceptions, Christian Lange

discerned seven attitudes towards the hereafter.1 The first two atti-
tudes are both rooted in the early renunciant movement (zuhd) in

83

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Islam. The general tendency within the zuhd movement was to stress
that a pious person should strive for the hereafter by disentangling
themselves from this lower life and struggling against worldly desires
and aspirations. This roughly led to two attitudes, emphasising either
the punishment or the reward in the hereafter. The first attitude
emphasised the fear of Hell (khawf ) as a way to cultivate piety. The
second attitude focused on the longing for Paradise (rajāʾ). The third
and fourth attitudes took shape as a ‘cold’ and ‘hot’ antithesis to the
attitudes of these early zuhhād. Both take as axiomatic that an exag-
gerated fixation on either the enjoyment of Paradise or the punish-
ment of Hell distracts from what truly matters in the hereafter: God
Himself, His contentment, being near Him and the vision of Him. The
‘cold’ response did not deny the reality of the otherworldly reward
and punishment, but merely stressed that the true reward and pun-
ishment was to be either near to or far from God. The ‘hot’ response,
then, was a form of dhamm al-ākhira, an outright contempt of Paradise
and Hell, considering them something that veils the believer from
God.2 The fifth and sixth attitudes are related to trends of monism
in Sufi thought and conceive of an immanent Paradise and Hell. The
fifth attitude recognises Paradise and Hell in aspects of this-worldly
creation, in the macrocosm. The sixth attitude considers Paradise and
Hell to be immanent in the microcosm; they can be found within the
inner constitution of man. The seventh attitude consists of cosmologi-
cal speculation on themes such as the isthmus (barzakh), and finds its
most prominent proponent in Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240).3
Another, older, study on Sufi conceptions of the otherworld is
contained in La vie future selon le Coran by Soubhi El-Saleh. Rather
than analyse these conceptions thematically and classify them accord-
ing to their attitude towards the otherworld as Lange does, he takes
historical periods as the basis of his analysis. The central question for
him is how the Sufis perceived joy and torment: did they do away with
the concrete character of Qurʾanic descriptions of Paradise and Hell
or were they forced to recognise its reality to a certain extent? In the
first case, how did they do away with it, and in the second case, what
was the nature of this reality? He distinguishes five different periods:

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(1) the first two centuries of Islam; (2) the third and fourth centuries;
(3) the fifth century; (4) the sixth and seventh centuries; and (5) after
the seventh century. In the first period, El-Saleh identifies two dif-
ferent ascetic trends, neither of which denied the reality of reward
and punishment: an asceticism in which the fear of punishment and
desire for recompense is equally dominant, represented by al-Ḥasan
al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728) and the mystics of Basra, and an asceticism in
which the accent is on the love of God as the essential motivation for
obedience rather than reward and punishment, represented by Rābiʿa
al-ʿAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya (d. 185/801). This second trend, although
considered secondary, certainly did not wholly deny the physical real-
ity of Paradise and Hell. In the second period, this focus on love for
God was further developed, with a whole new lexicon to describe it.
The idea became more abstract and the religious sciences became
separated into exoteric and esoteric. However, this did not lead to a
rejection of the exoteric sciences by mystics. They kept recognising
the physical reality of Paradise and Hell. In the third and fourth peri-
ods, this remained the dominant idea: Paradise and Hell are real, but
only secondary to the meeting with and contemplation of God.4 (The
fifth period El-Saleh considers to have been a period of decadence and
decline, in which nothing worth mentioning happened.)
In what follows, we combine the approaches of Lange and El-Saleh
and undertake a diachronic study of the attitudes found in the works
of tafsīr written by the five authors discussed in Chapter 2. All of them
were composed in what El-Saleh has defined as the second and third
periods, which are generally considered to be at the end of the forma-
tive, classical period of Sufi tafsīr.5

Eschatological Commentary of al-Sulamī’s Major Sources

In our reading of al-Sulamī’s Qurʾan commentaries, we have identified

sayings with an eschatological character from no less than twenty-
three different authorities. Since our goal is to understand the devel-
opment and dynamics of Sufi eschatological ideas in the formative
period, we now discuss in chronological order the ideas of the most
significant and most frequently quoted personalities by al-Sulamī.

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We will relate them to the six attitudes described by Lange, and the
chronological development as outlined by El-Saleh.

Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765)

The oldest personality that al-Sulamī quotes in his commentary is the

Medina-based Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq. Only a few eschatological remarks can
be found in the quotes attributed to Jaʿfar. None of these are focused
on Hell, all on Paradise and especially the ultimate reward therein: the
meeting with and vision of God. Commenting on Q 39:25, he states:
‘If you look to other than Him, meeting with Him in the otherworld is
forbidden for you.’6 This theme comes up in more sayings, for exam-
ple regarding Q 43:71 (‘And therein is whatever the souls desire and
delights the eyes’):

What a difference between what is desired and what delights the

eyes. Because all that is situated in the Garden of happiness, desires
and delights is in comparison to what delights the eyes like a finger
dipped into the sea, because the desires of the Garden have a limit and
an end, because they are created. The eyes are not delighted in the
enduring abode (dār al-qarār) except by looking at the Remaining,
the Exalted, and that has no limit, no attribute and no end.7

The men ‘whom neither trade nor commerce distract from the remem-
brance of God’ (Q 24:37) are described as people who are distracted
neither by this lower world nor by the hereafter and its rewards.
The interior gardens of intimacy with God and remembrance of Him
(basātīn al-uns wa-riyāḍ al-dhikr) are enough for them.8 Commenting
on Q 68:34 (‘Indeed, for those wary of God (muttaqīn) are the gardens
of bliss with their Lord’), he further states that who wards oneself
from sins is rewarded with the Garden. Whoever belongs to those
wary of God attains more than that: they will be unveiled and will
witness the Real (al-ḥaqq) in all states.9 Entering the Garden by His
mercy and gazing (naẓar) upon His noble face are among the gifts of
God.10 The sweetness of this gazing ‘continues to shine on their faces,
like the sun, when they return from visiting God to their homelands
[in Paradise]’.11 The friends of God (awliyāʾ) are especially entitled to

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this honour according to Jaʿfar. On Q 54:55 (‘In a trustworthy place,

near a Sovereign Omnipotent’), he comments:

He praised the place by [using the concept of] trustworthiness. No

one sits in it except the people of trustworthiness, which is the seat
in which God fulfills the promises to his awliyāʾ, that is, He allows
them to look at His noble face.12

If one accepts these sayings as Jaʿfar’s, they would imply that the
focus on God rather than the enjoyments of Paradise was already
present at a quite early stage of Sufism, indeed earlier than (or at
least contemporary with) Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya (d. 185/801), who is
often associated with the introduction of this theme into Sufism.13
This combined with the absence of sayings on Hell makes one wonder
whether these sayings are perhaps indeed later than claimed. As
El-Saleh has pointed out, the early renunciants were known for their
emphasis on Hell and their fear of it, and it is only in the third century
that love mysticism appears.14 Based on this, it might indeed be likely
that the sayings attributed to Jaʿfar are rather a reflection of third-
century ideas being projected back onto him, rather than coming from
an authentic source.

Dhū’l-Nūn al-Miṣrī (d. 246/861)

From the Egyptian mystic Dhū’l-Nūn al-Miṣrī, only one long escha-
tological quote attributed to him is included.15 In the commentary
on Q 22:27, which deals with the hajj pilgrimage, he links the ritu-
als of the pilgrimage to several stages of death, the resurrection and
the hereafter. Dhū’l-Nūn equates the first stage of hajj, the intention,
with writing a will in the event of one’s death, in which the pilgrim
seeks the obedience to and contentment of God. After this, one travels
from dunyā to ākhira, a travel without return, on which the riding
camel is trust in God (tawakkul) and the provision is wariness of God
(taqwā).16 During travel the pilgrim must behave as if being carried
towards the grave. When entering into the state of ritual consecra-
tion (iḥrām), it is as if the pilgirm has died and been resurrected
from the grave, and is being called to stand between the hands of the

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Lord. That, according to Dhū’l-Nūn, is alluded to in the Qurʾanic saying

‘And proclaim the pilgrimage to the people; they will come to you on
foot’ (Q 22:27). The talbiyya is the response to this call, the major
ritual ablution (ghusl) of the iḥrām is like the washing of the deceased
(ghusl al-mayyit), and the clothes of iḥrām are like the death shroud.
Standing on Mount ʿArafat is like being raised from death, covered in
dust, and the sojourn at al-Muzdalifah is like the permission ( jawāz)
on the bridge (ṣirāṭ) towards the afterlife. Running between Safa and
Marwa is like the balance of good and bad deeds, leaning over from
the one side to the other. The ritual of sacrifice (mansik) is like the
heights (aʿrāf ) between the Garden and the Fire. The Sacred Mosque
(al-masjid al-ḥārām) is like the Garden: whoever enters it is safe. The
Kaʿba is like the throne of God, and the circumambulation (ṭawāf )
around it is like the ṭawāf of the angels around the throne.17
In the work of al-Sulamī, this immanentist approach to eschatol-
ogy seems to be unique to Dhū’l-Nūn; al-Sulamī does not quote similar
sayings from other authorities. It is not easy to classify this saying
into one of the seven attitudes mentioned above. One could argue that
it is an expression of the fifth attitude: conceiving of an immanent
otherworld in the macrocosm. One could also argue that it comes
close to the approach of the early renunciants. It contains elements of
the first and second attitudes, not so much in an explicit form of fear of
Hell or hope for Paradise (or perhaps anticipating both), but a strong
awareness of the inevitability of death and of resurrection.18

Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896)

As mentioned in Chapter 1, Basra-based Sahl al-Tustarī is the only

personality prior to al-Sulamī whose independent work of tafsīr is
still known to us in its original form today.19 He thus deserves a little
more attention here in the form of a small excursion into the tafsīr
that is attributed to him, to see how the transmissions in this tafsīr
relate to the commentary that al-Sulamī included. It is hoped that by
analysing al-Sulamī’s reception and redaction of Sahl’s sayings we can
reconstruct some of al-Sulamī’s doctrinal developments and personal
preferences.

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Globally, we can state that both the third and fourth attitudes
­– namely the ‘cold’ and the ‘hot’ rejection of Paradise and Hell – are
present in Sahl’s tafsīr, and that the stress on the vision of and meet-
ing with God is equally dominant as in the sayings by Jaʿfar. Besides
these themes, Sahl introduces another theme: consuming the delights
of Paradise during this-worldly life.
Sahl’s tafsīr shows the same prominence of the themes of near-
ness to and vision of God as focal points of the hereafter that we have
observed in the sayings attributed to Jaʿfar. An example of this is the
commentary on Q 19:61, where the Gardens of Eden are explained
as ‘the visual beholding (muʿāyana) of God, in the sense of nearness
which He facilitated between Him and them’.20 This proximity to and
vision of God is apparently so intense that to be cut off from it even
for a moment after having come to know Him is similar to the punish-
ment of Hell:

Truly God, Exalted is He, has servants in Paradise who, if they were
veiled from the encounter (liqāʾ) [with their Lord] for a blinking of
the eye, would cry out for help against it, just as the inhabitants of
the Hellfire plead for help against the Hellfire. This is because they
have come to know Him (ʿarafūhu).21

Subsequently, Sahl mentions Moses as an example of someone con-

stantly yearning for this visionary encounter. Being God’s interlocutor
(kalīm Allāh), having experienced the sweetness of hearing the unme-
diated voice of God, he wanted nothing else but to behold Him with his
eyes as well, and requested this. However, God refused, stating that
nobody could see Him in this world without dying. Moses then said, so
states Sahl: ‘O Lord! Let me behold You and die, for that is preferable
to me than not seeing You and remaining alive.’22
The commentary contains more sayings in a similar vein. The ulti-
mate death of the heart is imagined as being cut off (qaṭīʿa) from God,
while the ultimate life of the heart is considered to be the encounter
(liqāʾ) with God.23 The blindness in the hereafter that is mentioned in
Q 17:72 as a consequence of (metaphorical) blindness in this world is
explained as ‘being prevented from seeing the Bestower of ­blessings

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(al-Munʿim)’.24 The true worshippers are declared to be those who

worship God out of pure love, not because of the recompense of
Paradise and Hell.25 For the one who enjoys Paradise with his appeti-
tive self (al-nafs al-ṭabīʿī), the eternal vision of God will be lost.26 Who
is diverted from his Lord by the hereafter is said to have a despicable
nature and base aspiration.27 It is the luminous spiritual self (nafs
al-rūḥ al-nūrī) that is given the vision (ruʾya) in the heavenly kingdom
(malakūt).28 In the hereafter, the believer is in an even greater need
(iftiqār) of God than in this world, because of his constant yearning
for the encounter.29 For Sahl, the fear and hope mentioned in Q 32:16,
which in conventional works of tafsīr is explained as fear of pun-
ishment and hope for reward, comes to mean the fear of separation
(hijrān) from God and the hope for meeting (liqāʾ) with Him.30 When
God interrogates the truthful on the Day of Judgement and testifies
that they speak the truth, His affirming their truthfulness is more
dear to them than Paradise and its bliss.31 The abhorrence of God for
their deeds is more difficult to bear for them than the Fire.32 Gratitude
is said to lead to the vision of Paradise (ruʾyat al-janna).33 Paradise
itself is the reward for one’s bodily acts – ‘whatever the souls desire’
(Q 43:71) – while the visionary encounter with God – ‘and delights the
eyes’ (Q 43:71) – is the reward for the realisation of God’s oneness.34
The forgiveness of their Lord mentioned in Q 47:15 is interpreted as
the lights of God that cover the believers during their vision of God in
Paradise.35 They become able to bear this vision because God grants
them stability (tamkīn) as a reward for the realisation of God’s one-
ness.36 In the commentary on Q 75:22–3, which itself speaks of the
vision of God, Sahl states that whoever is killed by his love for God will
be rewarded with the vision of Him.37
While it is true that verses that deal with the hereafter in its physi-
cal sense are largely neglected (rather than denied) in Sahl’s com-
mentary, his tafsīr contains some remarkable quotes that do not so
much extol the enjoyments of Paradise in the hereafter, but describe
instances of experiencing the enjoyments of Paradise in this world.38
The two most illustrative examples have been briefly discussed in
Chapter 1. One quote speaks of a man (Sahl) consuming a pomegran-

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ate from Paradise in this world as proof that he is of the people of

Paradise; only those preordained to eat it in the hereafter are also
capable of eating it in this world.39 Another example of this boundary
crossing is found in the commentary on Q 76:25, where Sahl claims
to experience the drinking of a paradisiacal drink mentioned in the
verse he recites during the congregational night prayer.40
Besides these cases of encountering, or tasting, Paradise in the
phenomenal world, there are also some cases of internalisation of
the hereafter, namely Paradise and Hell metaphorically being found
within the inner constitution of the believer. Commenting on Q 73:9,
for example, Sahl states:

There is a Paradise and a Hellfire in this life. Paradise is safety

(ʿāfiya), and safety is that God takes care of your affairs, and Hellfire
is tribulation (balwā). Tribulation is when He leaves you in charge
of your self.41

The inner meaning of the gardens and springs mentioned in Q 51:15

is said to be that the God-conscious inhabit gardens of God’s content-
ment (riḍā) in this world and swim in springs of intimate companion-
ship (uns). The mercy mentioned in Q 17:57 is said to be Paradise in
its outer meaning, while it is the reality of experiential knowledge
(ḥaqīqat al-maʿrifa) in its inner meaning. The people of the Heights
mentioned in Q 7:46 are equated with the people of experiential
knowledge. As the people of the Heights can see into Paradise and
Hell, the people of experiential knowledge can see into ‘the secrets of
His servants and their states in this world’.42
A significant number of the sayings mentioned in the tafsīr
attributed to Sahl did not find their way into the two tafsīr works of
al-Sulamī. Only one saying that explicitly deals with the pure love for
God instead of reward and punishment as the only sincere motive for
worship is mentioned as it is in Sahl’s tafsīr.43 In addition, al-Sulamī
includes the saying that being hated by God is more difficult for the
unbeliever than the punishment of the Fire.44
Al-Sulamī mentions one saying by Sahl that explicitly deals with
the physical pleasures of Paradise, stating in the commentary on

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Q 55:56 that, ‘Whoever restrains his glance in this world from the for-
bidden, and obscure matters, and from enjoyments and their beauty,
God gives him in the otherworld women restraining their glances
which He has promised.’45 This saying is also mentioned in Sahl’s
tafsīr.46 The pomegranate story is not mentioned by al-Sulamī at all.
Probably the idea of the physical consumption of paradisiacal objects
in this world had become too controversial by his time, to the extent
that he decided to omit it from his redaction. The discussion on this
issue must have taken place somewhere in the era between these
two authors, and must have been decided in favour of those arguing
against the idea. For example, Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/936),
who lived in the era between Sahl and al-Sulamī, speaks about the idea
of consuming fruits of Paradise in this world in a negative manner in
his Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn. 47 However, the story of drinking the pure
drink of Paradise during prayer is mentioned by al-Sulamī. This was
probably not considered controversial since it is clear in the anecdote
that the drinking is imaginary and not physical.

Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz (d. 286/899)

Originally from Baghdad, Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz is said to have travelled

extensively to Basra, Qayrawan, Mecca and Medina, Jerusalem and
Egypt, where he studied with the Sufi masters of his age. His teachings
in general stressed, like those of his contemporary al-Junayd, that
interior (bāṭin) ideas must not contradict exterior (ẓāhir) doctrine
or law. For example, he had a correspondence with a group of Sufis
in Damascus, who held the view that they could see God with their
hearts in this world as the inhabitants of Paradise will see God with
their eyes. He considered this to be a heretical view.48
The few sayings transmitted by al-Sulamī attributed to him do not
clearly testify to this concern. He is quoted as saying that ‘he in whose
heart experiential knowledge (maʿrifa) resides, does not perceive (lā
yubṣiru) anything beside God in the two abodes’.49 Another saying
also indicates a stress on the theme of experiential knowledge, stat-
ing that the people of experiential knowledge in this world are like
the people of the Garden in the otherworld.50 That the importance of

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otherworldly proximity to and vision of God does not lead to a renun-

ciation of otherworldly joy, but rather is highest in the hierarchy of
joys, becomes clear in his saying that he who repents

has to wait a long time for death while fearing temptation in this
world, has to wait a long time for the reward in the grave while
hoping for abundant givings in the otherworld, and he has to wait a
long time for the resurrection while hoping for eternal dwelling in
the proximity of the Merciful and looking at Him.51

Al-Junayd al-Baghdādī (d. 298/910)

Al-Junayd, who together with al-Muḥāsibī is considered one of the

most important early proponents of a more sober form of Sufism
alongside the emerging ‘ecstatic’ trend, also showed a more modest
concern for the vision of God in the otherworld. He claimed that who-
ever is blind to witnessing of the grace of God in this world will not
witness the essence (dhāt) of God in the otherworld, and that ‘who in
this [abode] is blind to the witnessing of His doing good, is blind in
the otherworld to the vision of Him and astray from His nearness’.52
In another saying, al-Junayd quotes al-Sarī (d. 243/857), who related
that he had seen God in his sleep and who said the following to him:

O Sarī, I created humankind, and I created this world (al-dunyā), and

with this world went away nine tenths of humankind, and one tenth
stayed with Me. Then I created the Garden, and with the Garden nine
tenths of what remained went away, and from it one tenth stayed
with Me. Then tribulation (al-balāʾ) ruled over them, and from the
tribulation nine tenths of what remained fled, and a tenth of a tenth
remained. So I said: ‘What do you want if it is not this world that you
wanted, and not the Garden that you sought, and you did not flee
from tribulation?’
And they answered me. They said: ‘You know what we want.’
I said: ‘I will send tribulations down on you which the moun-
tains cannot bear.’
They said: ‘Are you not the one who does this to us? So we are
content.’53

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This narration is first of all important because it shows that for these
early Sufis, even the more sober-minded, the claim of seeing God in a
dream, and by this mode receiving wisdom from God, was apparently
not a strange thing. Both al-Junayd and al-Sulamī were not shocked
by such a claim to the point of censoring it from their corpuses or
problematising it in an added comment of their own.54 Second, it is
important for the notion that both this world and the Garden are
seen to keep humankind away from what really matters, expressed in
the rhetorical answer ‘You know what we want’. What it is that they
want, al-Sarī does not make explicit, but it is quite obvious that God is
implied. It is only a very small group of people who realise this, and
who attain this highest level.

Ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Ādamī (d. 309/922)

One of the authorities that al-Sulamī quotes most often, both on

eschatological verses and in general, is the Baghdad-based Abū’l-
ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿAṭāʾ al-Ādamī (d. 309/922). He was an associate
of al-Junayd and al-Ḥallāj (d. 309/922), whom he supported until his
death by execution and whose fate he would therefore more or less
share, dying from torture in captivity for refusing to testify against
him.55 Ibn ʿAṭāʾ was an adherent of the Ḥanbalī school. In Sufism, he
was instructed by al-Junayd’s friend Ibrāhīm al-Māristānī. Not much
is known about his life. He is said to have had a life full of tribula-
tions, losing many of his children. Several hagiographies mention his
intimate relationship with and deep understanding of the Qurʾan, the
recitation of which is said to have consumed most of his daily time,
completing the recitation of its entirety once every day, and three
times a day during the month of Ramadan.
Ibn ʿAṭāʾ is said to have had a difference of opinion with al-Junayd
on the definition of ecstasy (wajd). According to al-Junayd, the stress
should be on rejoicing, while Ibn ʿAṭāʾ preferred an ecstasy of grief. He
argued that rejoicing only befitted man when returned to the original
abode of Adam, Paradise. Therefore, in this world grief and weeping
should be dominant.56 This gives the impression of a renunciant atti-
tude towards this-worldly life and a hope-driven orientation towards

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Paradise. However, most of his sayings fall within the scope of both
the third and fourth attitudes, altogether making his response ‘tepid’
rather than ‘hot’ or ‘cold’. Commenting on Q 3:131, for example, he
‘coldly’ states that God in this verse commanded the normal people
(ʿawāmm) to be conscious of the Fire, to fear it and to leave sins for the
sake of it, while in another verse ‘He commanded the elect (khawāṣṣ) to
be conscious of Him and to look at none other than Him’.57 The reward
for the God-conscious he held to be the vision of God.58 The verse ‘We
have wronged ourselves’ (Q 7:23) comes to mean that people wrong
themselves ‘by being occupied with the Garden and desiring it, instead
of God’.59 The obligation that God gave to Adam (Q 20:115), according
to Ibn ʿAṭāʾ, was that he should not look at anything other than Him.
However, Adam, in his lack of firmness mentioned in the same verse,
forgot this obligation and looked to the Gardens instead, thus being
disobedient.60 In addition, ‘Adam’s departure from the Garden, his
crying much, his need (iftiqār), and the emergence of the prophets
from his loins, were better for him than the Garden and the enjoyment
and luxury in it.’61 That the otherworldly vision of God was considered
the most important by Ibn ʿAṭāʾ also appears in several other sayings:
‘The complete blessing in this World is experiential knowledge, and in
the otherworld the vision.’62 When the believers of Q 18:31 are ‘rest-
ing on the benches’, they are constantly looking at their King.63

Quotes from Other Authorities

Abū Bakr al-Wāsiṭī (d. 320/932) also mainly showed interest in the
vision of God. In line with the conventional explanation, regarding
Q 10:26 he is quoted to have said that al-ziyāda is the glance (naẓar)
at God. The highest degree in the hereafter he holds to be the ‘carpet
of nearness’ (bisāṭ al-qurb) and witnessing (mushāhada) God is even
more elevated and majestic. The degree one reaches is determined by
the degree of one’s longing (shawq).64
All that is attributed to al-Shiblī (d. 334/945) is that he commented
upon Q 3:152 (‘Among you are those who want this world and among
you are those who want the otherworld’), saying: ‘Among you are
those who want this world for obedience, and among you are those

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who want the otherworld for the Garden. But where is the desirer
(murīd) of God the Exalted?’ Being a desirer of God is then connected
to the moral quality of God-centred motivation in all of one’s acts:
‘The desirer of God the Exalted is the one who when they speak, speak
for God, and when they remain silent, it is for none other than God
the Exalted.’65 These quotes, selected by al-Sulamī, are significantly
more ‘cold’ than al-Shiblī’s sayings elsewhere, which represent a ‘hot’
contempt for the otherworld. For example, he likens Hell to sugar
when compared to being separated from God, and claims that he can
extinguish the fire of Hell by spitting on it.66 That al-Sulamī did not
include these sayings in his selection may mean that al-Sulamī did
not look favourably on these sayings and preferred a more moderate
understanding of Sufism in his selection.
Al-Sulamī relates several sayings from his teacher, Abū’l-Qāsim
al-Naṣrābādhī, himself a student of al-Shiblī. Commenting on a verse
that deals with almsgiving – ‘You will not reach piety until you give
from what is dear to you (Q 3:92) – he states that the Garden is what
should be given away and that ‘arrival’ at God (wuṣūl) can be reached
only by freeing oneself of the two abodes and what is in them.67
Commenting on a part of Q 16:21 – ‘Dead, not alive, and they do not
know’ – he is quoted to have said:

The people of the Garden are dead and do not know, because of their
being distracted by other than the Real (al-ḥaqq), and the people of
presence (ḥaḍra) are alive because they are in a state of witnessing
the Living (mushāhadat al-ḥayy).68

There are many passages that allude to the idea of Paradise and
Hell being a veil (ḥijāb) from God. Commenting on Q 2:82 ‘(And those
who believe and do good works, they are the companions of the
Garden, forever dwelling therein’), he quotes an unnamed Iraqi as
having stated that ‘works only make one reach something created like
itself, and the biggest veil of the knowers (ʿārifīn) is the Garden, and
distracting oneself by it from God is the biggest calamity (al-muṣība
al-ʿuẓmā), because the Garden emanated from “Be” (kun)’.69 The here-
after is only created, and thus ‘only’ a reward for one’s works, which

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are created as well. The focus should only be on the true, intrinsic
reward, which is the Creator Himself.

Conclusions

We may conclude that the sayings of the early renunciants, many

of whom stressed the fear of Hell, did not make it into al-Sulamī’s
redaction. The hope for the physical rewards of Paradise is also not
present very strongly. Most dominant already in the time of al-Sulamī,
and probably even before that, was a God-centred conception of the
hereafter expressed in the themes of the meeting with and vision
of God. The fourth, ‘hot’, attitude seems to have been especially
strong with those personalities generally identified with ‘ecstatic’
Sufism, although it seems that al-Sulamī suppressed some of their
more radical statements, as he was also reluctant to convey trends of
immanentist eschatology. The more sober-minded personalities did
not completely lose sight of reward and punishment.

Eschatological Commentary in al-Qushayrī’s Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt

Ishārī (allusive) explanations do not form the bulk of al-Qushayrī’s

commentary on issues of Paradise and Hell. Generally, when he com-
ments on eschatological verses in his commentary, he remains close
to conventional understandings of the verses and elaborates on them
in his distinctive literary style. An example is his commentary on
Q 27:87, on ‘the day the horn will be blown’, about which he states:

It is related that the day on which the trumpet is blown, is the day
of the passing away of the spirits, and their parting from the bodies.
There are spirits that ascend to ʿIlliyyīn, and there are spirits that
go to Sijjīn. Those are set in birds which move in the Garden, [and]
take their refuge in the night to lanterns attached to the underside of
the [Divine] Throne, its attribute being praise (tasbīḥ), refreshment
(rawḥ) and comfort (rāḥa), and for some of them the witnessing
(shuhūd) and the vision (ruʾya), according to the merit that they held
in their this-worldly existence. And as for the spirits of the unbeliev-
ers, they are in the Fire, being punished according to their crimes.70

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These eschatological ideas of the separation of body and spirit,

and a temporary spiritual punishment or reward between death
and the ultimate eternal bodily recompense are well established in
the Jamāʿī-Sunni idea of limbo (al-barzakh).71 In addition, on other
issues al-Qushayrī follows these conventional ideas conscientiously.
Believers will not abide in the Fire forever and will ultimately go to
Paradise, while unbelievers will remain in an eternal punishment.72
Regarding those who choose this world over the otherworld, ‘God
does not speak to them, and does not look at them on the Day of
Resurrection and does not purify them. Then, with that He lets them
abide in the eternal punishment.’73 However, this eternal punishment
will be a bit lighter for sincere people among the unbelievers.74
Remarkably, al-Qushayrī neglects all of the Sufi quotes that we
discussed earlier in al-Sulamī’s commentary on the centrality of the
vision of God or nearness to Him in the hereafter. Moreover, the trend
of contemptus ultramundi remains unmentioned in his selection of
quotes from al-Sulamī. Does this mean he did not have any interest in
these topics? Not quite. For example, on Q 43:71 he comments:

The people of experiential knowledge (ahl al-maʿrifa) and the lovers

(muḥibbūn), they have the gaze at God (naẓar) that delights their
eyes according to the length that they have measured of excess of
longing with their hearts, and [according to] the burning they have
undergone because of the heaviness of their ardent desire (ghalīl).75

This quote is in its content not much different from Jaʿfar’s statement
on the same verse before him. We cannot then conclude that his omis-
sion of these quotes was because he disagreed with their approach to
mysticism or on the topic of the vision of God.
Furthermore, in other places he shows interest in the theme of
vision. When speaking of the good in this world and the good in the
otherworld as mentioned in Q 2:201, he states that the good in this
world ‘is the witnessing with the inmost selves (shuhūd bi’l-asrār),
and the good in the hereafter is the vision with eyesight (ruʾyat
al-abṣār)’.76 The topic of nearness appears now and then as well, for
example when al-Qushayrī states that ‘death is a joy for the believer,

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and the message of nearness to Him is good news for him, because it
is a cause for being connected to God. Whoever loves to meet God, God
loves to meet him’.77 For al-Qushayrī, the ‘heavy punishment’ (ʿadhāb
shadīd) so often mentioned in the Qurʾan alludes to the humiliation of
the lowering of the veil between God and man (dhull al-ḥijāb).78 There
is no greater punishment than to be returned to creation after having
reached God, and to be veiled from God again.79
Moreover, a mild form of disregard for otherworldly recompense
appears every now and then. The best reward in the hereafter, states
al-Qushayrī, is to enter the Garden while being freed from it, and not
entering it imprisoned by it. He then quotes an anonymous source
not mentioned by al-Sulamī, stating that ‘the reward of this world and
the otherworld is absence [of the heart’s concern for] the two abodes
through seeing (ruʾya) their Creator.’80 True repentance is only made
for the sake of God, not out of fear of the Fire or desire for the Garden.81
Al-Qushayrī also uses Qurʾanic verses on taqwā (wariness of God)
to construct a hierarchy of ways to instil fear in different classes of
believers, a hierarchy that is typical for his combination of conven-
tional and ishārī hermeneutics. Into the generality (ʿawāmm), so
states al-Qushayrī, God instils fear through His acts (afʿāl) by remind-
ing them to protect themselves from (ittaqū) the Day of Judgement
and the Fire. The elect (khawāṣṣ), then, are subject to fear through
His attributes (ṣifāt), because they realise that God constantly sees
and witnesses them as is mentioned in Q 9:105 and Q 10:61. Into
the elect of the elect (khawāṣṣ al-khawāṣṣ), God instils fear only
through Himself, as reflected in the saying in Q 3:28 that ‘God warns
you of Himself’.82 The higher one’s level on the Sufi path, the more
God-centred one’s motivation becomes, and the less important oth-
erworldly recompense becomes for one’s fear and wariness of God.
To conclude, an important note should be made concerning
what constitutes a ‘Sufi’ approach to the Qurʾanic text, an issue we
have raised in the previous two chapters. Since al-Qushayrī does not
emphasise ishārī explanations of eschatological verses as much as
other authors and puts more stress on the conventional meanings, it
would be tempting to say that his approach to eschatology was less

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motivated by ‘Sufi’ concerns. However, I think this is wrong. It would

be more correct to state that although he did not opt for an ishārī
approach in many cases, his intention was still shaped by Sufi con-
cerns. Since his goal with Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt was to guide and train his
pupils on the Sufi path, he apparently saw a conventional understand-
ing of eschatology as being part of a decent Sufi training. Whether the
work is ‘Sufi’ or not then is not so much determined by the extent of
the ishārī material quoted, but depends more on the reception and
usage of the text. For a text to be a ‘Sufi’ text, what is defining is
that the Sufis somehow consider it important in their path and claim
it as their own. What makes al-Qushayrī’s approach to eschatology
‘Sufi’, then, is the fact that it was valued in the context of instruction
and creating like-mindedness among his group of Sufi pupils, who
considered these conventional readings of eschatological verses to be
just as much a part of their training as the ishārī readings. To cultivate
the character traits for becoming an exemplary Sufi, one needed these
conventional understandings as well.83

Hierarchies in the Hereafter: Maybudī

With its ten volumes, Maybudī’s Qurʾan commentary is the most volu-
minous of the works under study. Whereas we have been able to
study the other works from cover to cover in order to reconstruct
their eschatological conceptions, here we can offer only a selective
reading of the vast material available in Maybudī’s tafsīr.84
Maybudī’s commentary shows a certain amount of ambiguity on
issues pertaining to the hereafter: several seemingly conflicting atti-
tudes coexist. On the one hand, he does not completely do away with
the attitude of the early renunciants towards the hereafter. He holds
both fear of Hell and hope for Paradise as being necessary. However,
he does show himself as critical of an isolated cultivation of these atti-
tudes. They should always come together and should be in balance.
In his commentary on Q 52:13, about the punishment of Hell, and
Q 52:17–18, about the reward of Paradise, he states that these verses
demand both fear and hope. God mentions the reward of Paradise
directly after the punishment of Hell as a signal to the believer that

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the two should be in balance. One should neither despair of God’s

mercy, nor feel secure from His punishment. To exemplify his point,
he makes a similitude with a lamp. He compares fear to fire, hope to
oil, belief to a wick, and the heart to a lamp holder. For a lamp to burn,
it needs both fire and oil. Likewise, a religious person needs both fear
and hope.85
On the other hand, an attitude of disregard for the hereafter is
also present in Maybudī’s commentary. For example, he says that
someone who has reached intimacy with God will not be satisfied by
the bliss of Paradise.86 He also quotes Abū ʿAlī Rūdbārī (d. 322/934),
a Persian disciple of al-Junayd, who preferred one ‘breath’ of God to
all the material delights of Paradise.87 On Q 36:55 (‘The companions
of the Garden are joyfully in occupation today’), he quotes his teacher
ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī (referred to only as pīr-i ṭarīqat) saying that this
occupation is that of the generality of believers of whom Muhammad
has said: ‘The majority of the people of the Garden are the simple-
minded.’88 The elect of the believers who have experienced proxim-
ity and the presence of witnessing (ḥaḍrat-i mushāhada) cannot be
interested in the bliss of Paradise at all. What Maybudī seems to mean
by this is that the generality of believers are simple-minded because
they do not realise that the true value of Paradise does not lie in the
material enjoyments with which they occupy themselves, but in the
nearness to and vision of God. He stresses this further by describing
how a group of people standing before God on the Day of Resurrection
will not want to leave to go to Paradise. When they are commanded to
go, they will answer that they already have what they want: they are
already standing before God.89
In several instances Maybudī criticises people who are motivated
only by reward or punishment. He takes specific issue with religious
scholars who confine themselves to the outward aspects of religion.
He considers them to be on the lowest level of tawḥīd. All they care
about is safety in this world and well-being in the hereafter. He quotes
al-Junayd to this effect: ‘These are the filling of the Garden, which
has companions other than these. The stuffing of the Garden are its
prisoners, and the companions of the Garden are its commanders.’90

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In his commentary on Q 73:8 he pleads for a complete focus on God

at the expense of Paradise and Hell. This is embodied in the state of
devotion (tabattul).91 In this state only God enters the mind, pushing
Paradise and Hell to the background:

Tabattul is one of the stations of [spiritual] wayfarers; those who in

their states (munāzilāt) and unveilings have reached a point where
Paradise with all its trees and rivers does not enter the beauty of
their imagination, while hellfire with all its shackles and chains
trembles in fear at the burning in their breasts.92

Maybudī more often uses his commentary on eschatological

verses to establish and confirm a hierarchy in religious understand-
ings and levels of inner life that are typical of Sufism.93 He distin-
guishes three degrees within Paradise, related to three different
stages of God-wariness (taqwā). The first stage is the Garden of
Refuge ( jannat al-maʾwā), reserved for those who avoid forbidden
things and the desires of the lower self.94 The highest degree is the
Garden of Eden ( jannat ʿadn), coupled with the greatest contentment
(riḍwān-i akbar), reserved for those most wary of God.95 This high-
est level consists of considering anything created as one’s enemy,
thus being completely focused on God and passionate love for reality
(ʿishq-i ḥaqīqat) in one’s heart.96 Maybudī also expresses his belief
that in the hereafter everybody is rewarded according to their goals
and aspirations. Those who abide by the law are rewarded with the
Garden of Refuge, those with renunciant aspirations with the abode
of eternity (dār al-khuld). The highest aspiration is of those who do
not have any otherworldly hopes and desires and show disregard
for the rewards of Paradise. Maybudī describes how this group is
offered all types of material reward by the maidens and boy-servants
of Paradise, but refuse everything. They want only to give their hearts
to God.97 Everyone ultimately receives what he hopes for. The highest
hope one can have is the vision of God:

From inside the court of Majesty comes the call of generosity with
the attribute of mercy: ‘O Muhammad! The work of your community

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falls within three kinds: either they are believers, or they are know-
ers, or they are disobedient. If they are believers hoping for para-
dise, here then is Our paradise. If they are the disobedient hoping for
Our mercy, here then is Our mercy and forgiveness. If they are the
knowers hoping for vision, here then is Our vision.’98

Elsewhere Maybudī elaborates further on this idea of separate

stages of reward corresponding with varying attitudes towards both
the here and the hereafter. Those who aspire only to this world will
gain nothing in the hereafter, except by God’s mercy. Those whose
aspiration aims at the hereafter are too attached to the otherworldly
reward to experience intimate conversation with God and His unveil-
ing. The highest aspiration is of one whose ‘heart is captive to love and
his spirit drowned in face-to-face vision (ʿiyān). He has no news of this
world and no mark of the otherworld’.99 The knower (ʿārif ) takes the
highest position in Maybudī’s hierarchy of reward, above the normal
worshipper (ʿābid) and the renunciant (zāhid). The normal worship-
per is like a mercenary (muzdūr) to him, only worshipping for the
sake of the hereafter. The knower, however, disregards the hereafter
and is aiming only for the vision of God.100 In the hereafter, God will
oblige the renunciant to enjoy Paradise as a reward for his disregard
of worldly matters. The knower, who did not outright despise this-
worldly life but was simply inattentive to it as a result of his occupa-
tion with his love for God, will end up at the highest station, ‘in an
assembly of truth, in the presence of a sovereign’ (Q 54:55).101
Maybudī is the first to explicitly interpret the sensory experi-
ences of Paradise from a Sufi perspective. In a lengthy commentary
on Q 36:55 (‘The companions of the Garden are joyfully in occupation
today’), he gives a description of the role of the senses of taste, audi-
tion and vision in Paradise. He describes how the faithful will engage
in the Sufi practice of listening (samāʿ) in Paradise. The angel Isrāfīl
will read the Qurʾan to them and David will recite from the Psalms.102
This auditory spectacle arouses the desire in the heart of the believer
to taste the pure wine of Paradise (Q 76:21), which is an allusion to
the state of communion (waṣl) with God,103 and in the spirit and the

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eye to hear and see God directly. God then ultimately lifts the veil and
shows Himself. He will provide His servants with cups of wine and
will recite from the Qurʾan to them. This then, states Maybudī, is the
true samāʿ. This listening does not take place through the body or
the heart, but through the spirit ( jān). This is the only organ that is
capable of becoming truly solitary with God.104
The vision of God is the most important sensory experience in
the hereafter according to Maybudī. He describes it as the splendour
of the spirit (bahāʾ-i jān), as what makes the Garden good and makes
the poor person happy.105 Longing for this vision should lead to a
disregard for this-worldly matters: it is God’s rightful due that only
He be looked at with the eye of love.106 This vision in the hereafter
takes place by three different ‘eyes’. First, there is the vision by the
eye of the head, which sees the ‘light of bounty’ and is for pleasure.
The second vision is by the eye of the heart, which is for experiential
knowledge (maʿrifa) and sees the ‘light of proximity’. Third, one sees
God with the eye of the spirit through the ‘light of finding’ (wujūd);
this is for witnessing (mushāhada).107
In conclusion, we can state that Maybudī deployed all the attitudes
and grander themes present in al-Sulamī’s Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr. However,
to bring forward these themes he hardly used the material collected
by al-Sulamī. He found his own language to express these ideas, and
saw no need to stand on the shoulders of his predecessors to convey
them.

Paradise as Ṣadaqa and Shirk: Al-Daylamī’s Taṣdīq al-maʿārif

In al-Daylamī’s thought, the fourth, ‘hot’, attitude has clearly won over
the third, ‘cold’, attitude, which was dominant in al-Qushayrī and still
somewhat in balance in the works of al-Sulamī and Maybudī. In his
tafsīr, we see a further continuation, or even radicalisation, of the
theme of belittling the importance of reward and punishment as a
motivation for one’s belief and actions, focusing one’s otherworldly
aspirations fully on God. One should only call people to God, not to
Paradise or this world.108 He considers both this world and the other-
world a tribulation (ibtilāʾ) by God.109 One’s supplications should be

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only for the face of God, not for this world or the otherworld.110 In his
renunciation of the hereafter, al-Daylamī makes a similar distinction
in levels of inner life as Maybudī. Through the Qurʾan’s summoning
of the people to ‘take heed’ (ittaqū), he establishes a hierarchy in
orientations on the hereafter. To ‘take heed’ is sometimes meant in
the sense of fearing God and sometimes in the sense of fearing the Fire
or the Resurrection. The knower (ʿārif ) is supposed to fear only God,
while the ordinary people (ʿawāmm) are called to fear the Fire and
the Day of Resurrection.111 Al-Daylamī therefore forbids his intended
audience, whom he apparently wishes to see on the level of the know-
ers, to worship God out of hope for Paradise or fear of Hell. The refuge
to God should not be motivated by thought of punishment, but of God
alone, and the escape to God should be from God alone.112 Those who
direct themselves towards this world turn away from the otherworld,
and those who direct themselves towards the otherworld turn away
from God. To direct oneself towards God alone one has to turn away
from this world and the otherworld altogether.113 The two sandals
that Moses is summoned to leave behind for his auditory meeting
with God in Q 20:12 are this world and the otherworld and what is in
them.114 He holds that the Garden is better than this world, and that
the contentment (riḍwān) of God is better than the Garden and all
that is in it. This is because riḍwān is an attribute of God and as such
is an instrument for reaching the greatest proximity by witnessing
(mushāhada) and eye-witnessing (muʿāyana) God.115
In his commentary on several verses that deal with the giving of
alms, he states that the true meaning of these verses is that to attain
God one should give away not only from one’s dunyā, but from one’s
ākhira as well. Commenting on Q 2:267 (‘Give away from the good
things that you have earned’), he states that God can only be attained
by giving away the best of what one has earned. Paradise is the best
one can rightfully attain by one’s pious acts. One can give it away by
removing the desire for it from one’s heart (qalb) and inmost self
(sirr), so that one does not love it and does not want it, and so that
one comes to see Paradise as enchainment and prison. To support
this idea al-Daylamī quotes Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī, who is said to have

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stated: ‘If God were to punish me on the Day of Resurrection, He

would do it by distracting me by means of the Garden and its bliss.’116
Al-Daylamī states this is the true meaning of the alleged saying of
Muhammad that this world and the otherworld are forbidden for the
people of God (ahl Allāh).117 He then continues to state that it is clear
that this world is not intended in the verse, since it is clear from many
other Qurʾanic verses and sayings of the Prophet that this world does
not belong to the good things.118 The verse ‘You will not reach piety
until you give away from what is beloved to you’ (Q 3:92) is explained
similarly. One is supposed to give away one’s dunyā and ākhira, and
one’s self (nafs) and one’s spirit (rūḥ).119
Al-Daylamī even goes so far in this dhamm al-ākhira to state that
fear of the Fire and hope for the Garden can lead to a form of idola-
try (shirk). These emotions are part of one’s desires, and the Qurʾan
speaks negatively about taking one’s desires as a god.120 Whoever
connects their heart to something other than God is considered to be
a polytheist (mushrik) or an unbeliever (kāfir). Whoever loves God
for the sake of His bliss in this world and the otherworld, or fears God
out of fear for His tribulations and punishments in this world and the
otherworld, has taken partners beside God in their love (maḥabba),
fear (khawf ) and hope (rajāʾ). He compares it to the people of this
world (ahl al-dunyā) who love only their possessions for the benefit
they give to them, and not for the sake of these possessions them-
selves.121 The scholars of Sufism, he states, define idolatry as the incli-
nation of the inmost self to other than God (al-iltifāt bi’l-sirr ilā ghayr
Allāh). The punishment for that is to be cut off from God, covered and
far removed from Him.122 Sincerity (ikhlāṣ) is to take neither dunyā
nor ākhira as one’s lord and to be focused only on the Creator, not
on creation. The Garden and the Fire belong to the realm of creation
and are thus unworthy of our attention.123 Al-Daylamī labels those
who fulfil this demand of complete focus on God alone, instead of
on the Garden and the Fire, as those who do good (muḥsinūn).124
While the general believers are satisfied with the Paradise that they
earned by their works of obedience, these exceptional people end up
in ‘the world of doing good’ (ʿālam al-iḥsān) and are ‘with God in a

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grace which is not to be described and whose description cannot be

understood’.125
The motive of otherworldly vision is also present in his work. He
considers seeing God to be the reward for the believers, while being
veiled from God by His anger is the punishment of the unbelievers.126
Al-Daylamī agrees with the idea of vision and nearness as the ultimate
otherworldly desire, quoting Ibn ʿAṭāʾ on Q 21:102:

The hearts have a desire, the spirits have a desire, and the selves
have a desire. All of those [desires] come together in the Garden. The
desire of the hearts is witnessing (mushāhada) and vision (ruʾya),
the desire of the spirits is nearness (al-qurb), and the desire of the
self is delight in comfort.127

In his commentary on Q 75:22–3 (‘Faces on that day are radiant,

gazing at their Lord’),128 crucial verses commonly used as proof for
the vision of God in the hereafter in theological disputes, he proves
himself to be a proponent of the otherworldly vision of God with
the naked eye.129 Most of his commentary on these verses consists
of a theological polemic against the Muʿtazila and Najjāriyya, who
deny this vision, favouring an Ashʿarī perspective on the matter him-
self.130 He also cites a lengthy hadith attributed to Muhammad that
gives a detailed description of the lifting of the veil and the vision of
God in the hereafter by the believers. He additionally quotes an early
Sufi authority to underline the importance of the vision of God. The
early renunciant Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī (d. 215/830) is quoted to
have said that these particular verses are enough for the people of
experiential knowledge (ahl al-maʿrifa) to be happy, since there is
no greater joy for the lover than to arrive at the Beloved, and for the
knower to arrive at the One about whom experiential knowledge has
been attained.131
Remarkable is that al-Daylamī uses this verse not only to prove
the otherworldly vision, but also to plead for the possibility of a kind
of visionary boundary crossing: he claims that God can also be seen
in this world, and indeed is seen in this world by Sufi masters.132 Also
on Q 12:108, he states that a shaykh should call people to God only if

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he has seen and witnessed God Himself (ʿalā ruʾya wa-mushāhada).133

The vision of God is thus not only limited to the hereafter, but can be
experienced in this world as well. While boundary crossing was thus
far mainly a theme for Sahl al-Tustarī in the form of tasting fruits and
drinks from Paradise, the boundary crossing from ākhira to dunyā
in these passages from al-Daylamī is through the vision of God.134
In another passage, al-Daylamī brings the vision of God to an even
more unexpected place than this world. Not only are Paradise and
this world places where God can be seen with the eye and the heart
respectively, according to al-Daylamī God can also be seen in Hell. He
states that some of the Sufi masters have said that the people of the
Fire will indeed see Him in His attributes of punishment, anger and
revenge, to increase their fear, awe and anxiety.135
Regarding Q 6:127 (‘And for them is the abode of peace [dār
al-salām]’), he stresses that dār al-salām does not refer to the Garden,
which is the interpretation usually given by commentators. The
abode of peace is the abode of God, since God Himself is al-Salām.
The abode of God is ‘in an assembly of truth, in the presence of a
sovereign’ (Q 54:55) and is not a physical location. It is here that
Muhammad had his visionary meeting with God during the heavenly
journey and prostrated before Him. Neither the Garden nor the Fire
is in the presence of God, because material substances ( jusmāniyāt)
are not capable of being in the presence of God.136 The straight path
(al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm) leads to God, who Himself is al-Salām, and not
to Paradise.137
In addition, the idea of a return (rujūʿ) to God is present in
al-Daylamī’s work. Quoting a number of Qurʾanic verses, he states
that everything is constantly and continuously returning and on
its way towards God, in either a voluntary (ṭawʿan) or compulsory
(karhan) way, gratefully or ungratefully. Ultimately, all will reach God.
If one asks what then is the difference between the righteous and the
wicked, when all ultimately reach God, he states that the difference
is that the righteous will eventually enjoy the attributes of kindness
(ṣifāt al-ilṭāf ) and generosity (nuʿūt al-karam), while the wicked will
burn by the fire of wrath and revenge (nīrān al-qahr wa’l-naqm).138

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Eschatological Commentary in Rūzbihān’s ʿArāʾis al-bayān

In Rūzbihān’s thoughts on the hereafter, the most important new

trends in comparison with his predecessors are the explicit discus-
sions on the (leniency of) punishment in Hell and on Paradise as
imagined immanently in the inner life of the believer in the form of
Sufi stations and states.

Hell in Rūzbihān’s Commentary

In Rūzbihān’s tafsīr, for the first time we see a genuine interest in

the topic of Hell, albeit in a rather optimistic way, diminishing the
harshness of punishment. In a number of his commentaries on verses
that deal with the punishment of Hell, Rūzbihān seems to make a
case for leniency in that punishment, and for the kindness and mercy
of God being stronger than His wrath. Not only is there certainty of
salvation for believers, a kind of relief in Hell is anticipated also for
unbelievers. Even the possibility of eventual salvation is hinted at.139
For example, when commenting on Q 2:136 (‘And fear the Fire which
has been prepared for the unbelievers’), Rūzbihān states that this
verse makes it clear that the punishment of the Fire is not meant for
the believers. Still, they have to fear it, since it serves as a reprimand
and a warning for them, ‘like the pious father who is compassionate
towards his son, who frightens his son with a lion or a sword, even
though he does not hit him with the sword and does not throw him to
the lion’.140 This reprimand is out of kindness (talaṭṭuf) and compas-
sion (shafaqa) for the believers. The purpose of God threatening the
believers with the Fire when it is actually not meant for them is a
way for God to manifest His coercive power (tajallī al-qahr) to the
believers, which should make them stand in awe. God manifests His
greatness (ʿaẓama) in the Fire, and it is as if God wants to say, ‘Fear
me through the Fire, because I make the Fire burn and make it into
a punishment.’141 Remembrance of the Fire is thus first and foremost
a way for the believer to come to a realisation of the attributes of
power and greatness of God. Thus, unlike al-Daylamī, Rūzbihān does
not completely forbid finding one’s religious motivation in fear of

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the Fire, as long as the believer keeps in mind that God manifests His
attributes by the Fire.
Even the unbelievers who do end up in Hell experience a form
of kindness and generosity from God, according to Rūzbihān. In a
lengthy commentary on Q 7:50 in which the inhabitants of the Fire
call upon the inhabitants of the Garden to pour some water over them
and grant them some of what God has provided to them, which is then
refused, he states:

It is out of the kindness and generosity of God for His creation that
He lifts the veil from the Garden for the people of the Fire so that
they can bear the pains of the punishment by seeing the Gardens and
their inhabitants, and this is out of His hidden kindnesses.142

Generally, this verse is interpreted to mean the reverse of that: their

vision of Paradise and its people and the refusal to share water is to
stress the heaviness of the punishment in Hell and the hopelessness
of their situation.143 Rūzbihān compares the state of the people in the
Fire on the moment of the lifting of the veil to that of a passionate lover
(ʿāshiq) who is surrounded by snow but does not feel the bitter cold
because he is too overwhelmed by the sweetness of looking at the face
of his beloved. He compares this to the female companions of Joseph,
who did not feel pain when cutting their hands because they were too
occupied with witnessing Joseph’s beauty.144 To make his point even
stronger, he speaks about a shaykh on his way to perform the night
prayer who sees two lovers speaking in the snow. When he makes his
way to the dawn prayer later in the morning, they are still standing
in the snow up to their waists without having noticed the cold or the
passing of time. The shaykh then falls down, losing consciousness.
When he stands up again, he rips his robe apart and exclaims:

These two persons in their passionate love and witnessing did not
know the difference between the dawn and the dark night, and did
not notice the pains of the snow in the cold, and I claim to have love
for the Creator of creation, while I am heedless of this attribute [of
love].145

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For the request of the inhabitants of the Fire to pour water over them
or to give them some of what God has provided them, Rūzbihān gives
a couple of explanations. He says it is a request to the people in the
presence (ḥaḍra) of God, who are capable of doing this. The water
symbolises God’s compassion (shafaqa), and their provision is the
station of intercession (maqām al-shafāʿa). Another possible meaning
he gives is that it is the water of mercy or the proximity (qurba) that
God has provided them. He also states it might mean that the people
in Hell are not able to cry anymore because they have run out of tears,
and ask for water to be able to cry again. He then quotes lines of
poetry, which seems to imply that the reason for their crying is being
separated from God:

O you who has left, my tears are exhausted from the separation,
Grant me some tears with which I can weep about you.146

Commenting on Q 11:107 (‘Abiding therein as long as the heav-

ens and the earth endure, except what your Lord wills’), he states
that although it is not part of the creed of the ahl al-sunna that non-
Muslims will eventually be saved from Hell when the heavens and the
earth cease to exist, it is a thing hoped for because of the generosity
(karam) and kindness (luṭf) of God.147 When God wants to bring them
into the Garden, He throws them into the sea of life (baḥr al-ḥayawān),
a place of purification from the traces of Hell’s punishment, and from
there brings them into the Garden with the believers.148 In yet another
place, Rūzbihān claims that Jahannam (Hell) has a passionate longing
for God, just as the Garden has a passionate longing for Him.149 When
God realises the passionate longing of Jahannam for Him, He will
manifest His greatness (ʿaẓama) to it, compared to which Jahannam
becomes like ‘nothing in something’ (lā shayʾ fī shayʾ). First Jahannam
will be a place of sighing and sobbing, but eventually it will change
into a watering place and sweet-smelling plant (wird wa-rayḥān), by
the effect of the blessing of His appearance to it.150
At several instances, Rūzbihān defines the punishment of Hell
as being distant or veiled from God. ‘A great punishment’ (Q 2:7)
reserved for the unbelievers he defines as being so far away from God

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that one is unaware of His blessings. The punishment of the Fire is

the punishment of distance and separation from God. The inhabitants
of the Fire are defined as those who have left the witnessing of the
Merciful (aṣhāb al-hijrān ʿan mushāhadat al-Raḥmān). Jahannam is
described as the ‘fire of heedlessness’ (nīrān al-ghaflāt), the greatest
punishment for those who are veiled from God by their bad deeds.151

Paradise in Rūzbihān’s Commentary

In the commentary on verses about Paradise two themes are domi-

nant: nearness to, communion with and vision of God as the ultimate
enjoyments of Paradise, and immanent conceptions of Paradise.
These two are sometimes intertwined: the inner-worldly gardens that
Rūzbihān imagines are often gardens related to communion with God,
the manifestation (tajallī) of God, or to the vision (ruʾya) and wit-
nessing (mushāhada) of Him. Through experiencing these immanent
gardens and visionary encounters with God an inner-worldly bound-
ary crossing occurs: otherworldly eternal rewards are temporarily
attained during this-worldly life through Sufi stations and states.
The eternal and unchanged vision and witnessing of God in the
hereafter and communion with Him signifies the ultimate reward
for Rūzbihān, a recompense for what one has endured in this world
by passionately longing for God.152 In several passages he compares
these rewards to or contrasts them with stations and states in this
world. In the otherworld the believer can be rewarded with witness-
ing and nearness, just as he receives experiential knowledge and love
of God as a reward in this world.153 The ‘glad tidings in this world and
the otherworld’ (Q 10:64) Rūzbihān holds to be the witnessing of God.
The otherworldly witnessing is by eye-witnessing (muʿāyana), while
this-worldly witnessing is indirect:

In this world they witness clear proof (mushāhadat al-bayān) and

in the otherworld they witness with the eye (mushāhadat al-ʿiyān).
In this world they have unveilings (mukāshafāt), and in the oth-
erworld witnessings (mushāhadāt). In this world they have divine
manifestation (tajallī) and in the otherworld the station of coming

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near (maqām al-tadallī). In this world they have the vision (ruʾya)
of God in dreams, and in the otherworld eye-witnessing (ʿiyān
al-mushāhadāt).154

One’s state in dunyā determines one’s state in ākhira. Whoever is cut

off from God during this-worldly life will return to the same state
on the Day of Resurrection. Whoever during this life is in a state of
togetherness ( jamʿ) will be together with God in the hereafter as
well.155
Related to the themes of nearness and vision as being the essence
of the hereafter, the trend of dhamm al-ākhira is also present in
Rūzbihān’s commentary, mostly in a relatively moderate fashion, but
sometimes as radically as in al-Daylamī’s commentary. For example,
Rūzbihān considers the Qurʾanic supplication ‘Save us from the pun-
ishment of the Fire’ (Q 2:201) as a prayer to be saved from ‘the pun-
ishment of the veil by us being burned in the fire of the bliss (naʿīm)
of the otherworld’.156 The enjoyments of Paradise are thus considered
to be a veil between the believer and God, and to be consumed by
this bliss is like being burned in a fire. Rūzbihān interprets Q 2:229
(‘divorce is twice [al-ṭalāq marratān]’) to mean that the knower (ʿārif)
should divorce from both this world and the otherworld and all that it
contains: there should be place in one’s heart only for God.157 Whoever
turns away from God towards something else, even if it is Paradise,
has committed idolatry with regard to the realities of divine unity
(ḥaqāʾiq al-tawḥid).158 Rūzbihān holds, like Maybudī, that those who
are ‘joyfully in occupation’ (Q 36:55) are the simple-minded (bulh) in
the Garden. In their simple-mindedness, they are so distracted by the
bliss of the Garden that they are distracted from the Bestower of that
bliss.159
For Rūzbihān the rewards of Paradise also serve to establish hier-
archies according to the level of inner development of the believers.
The general believers, who live with wariness and fear of God, are
not the same as the pious (abrār), who have a higher level of piety
and thus a higher reward. The first are rewarded with the Garden,
while the latter are in nearness and witnessing of God. On the verse

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‘What is with God is better for the pious’ (Q 3:198), he states that the
witnessing of, nearness to and communion with God enjoyed by the
abrār who have reached the presence of God are better than what
the people who are wary of God (ahl al-taqwā) will enjoy of the bliss
of the Garden.160 Moreover, in other passages he stratifies Paradise.
He mentions different types of gardens for the generality (ʿumūm)
and for the elect (khuṣūṣ) from among the believers, each inhabiting
a different cosmological layer with a different reward. The Gardens
of Dominion (basātīn al-malakūt) are for the generality. The Garden
of the Elect is eye-witnessing the essence of omnipotence (muʿāyanat
dhāt al-jabarūt). They are in a constant state of communion (wiṣāl)
with their Lord.161 While the general believers in Paradise see God
only temporarily and are veiled from Him most of the time, the know-
ers and those inflicted by love of and longing for God are in an eternal
communion with God, and are in a constant state of unveiling. Both
groups receive the reward that their inner constitution is capable of
bearing. If the elite were to be cut off from God for the blink of an eye,
‘they would die in the Garden because of the vanishing of that state’.
The general believers, on the other hand, were they to remain in a
state of continuously witnessing God, ‘they would dissolve from the
force of the strength of His majesty and beauty’.162
Turning to the immanent conceptions of Paradise, these are sig-
nificantly more dominant in Rūzbihān’s commentary than we have
thus far seen in the other commentaries. In Qurʾanic passages that
deal with the gardens of Paradise, Rūzbihān links several attributes of
these gardens to Sufi stations (maqāmāt) and states (aḥwāl). Paradise
is thus to be found in the inner constitution of man, leading to a this-
worldly experience of Paradise by attaining certain stations and
states on the Sufi path. As Rūzbihān says, ‘So blessed be who has the
likes of these gardens in the abode of examination (dār al-imtiḥān).’163
Frequently in Rūzbihān’s commentary this interiorisation of Paradise
takes place in the form of this-worldly nearness to and witnessing
(mushāhada) of God. When experiencing these states of nearness and
witnessing, the believer is in ‘the gardens of witnessing’, ‘the gardens
of communion’ or ‘the gardens of nearness to and communion with

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Him’.164 In addition, Rūzbihān depicts the manifestation (tajallī) of

God’s majesty and beauty as a garden.165 He conceives of these gardens
as a foretaste of what they can expect in the hereafter. Commenting on
Q 2:25 (‘This is what we have been provided with before’), Rūzbihān
explains that to the people who witness God during this world, God
appears in the hereafter as well, appearing by the same attribute
according to which they witnessed Him during this-worldly life.166
In a couple of passages Rūzbihān gives quite detailed descrip-
tions of the structures of these interior gardens and for whom they
are attainable. These passages unfortunately do not teach us more
about Rūzbihān’s structuring of the gardens of the hereafter and
their significance. However, it does teach us a whole lot about his
understanding of stations and states, and about how he perceives the
progress of the seeker on the Sufi path. We will discuss two of them
in a bit more detail.167 First, the ‘gardens under which rivers flow’
mentioned in Q 2:25 are reason for Rūzbihān to sum up a list of differ-
ent interiorised gardens for the people of experiential knowledge (ahl
al-maʿrifa), all of which carry the name of a station (maqām) or state
(ḥāl). For example, there are the gardens of servanthood (ʿubūdiyya),
of lordship (rubūbiyya), of experiential knowledge (maʿrifa), of love
(maḥabba), of nearness (qurba), and of witnessing (mushāhada).
Each of these gardens, he states, has a further specification and its
own river, which flows underneath. He thus links certain stations and
states to each other: those symbolised as rivers emanate from those
symbolised by gardens. The garden of lordship is witnessing the pure-
ness of omnipotence (mushāhadat ṣirf al-qudra) to which belongs the
river of seeing the manifestation of God reflected in the signs (ruʾyat
tajallī al-ḥaqq fī mirʾāt al-āyāt); the garden of witnessing is astonish-
ment over God’s beauty (al-dahsha fī jamāl al-ḥaqq) and its river is
the subtleties of allusion (laṭāʾif al-ishāra).168 He mentions a total of
nineteen gardens for the knowers, with corresponding rivers, which
results in a neat overview of the most important technical terms and
their relationships according to Rūzbihān’s mysticism. This can be
visualised in the scheme in Table 3.1.
The second example can be found in the commentary on another

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Table 3.1 Gardens of the knowers

Garden of Consists of Contains river of
Servanthood Miracles (karāmāt) Realities of wisdom (ḥaqāʾiq
(ʿubūdiyya) al-ḥikma)
Lordship Witnessing of unadulterated Vision of the manifestation of God
(rubūbiyya) omnipotence (mushāhadat ṣirf in the mirror of life (ruʾyat tajallī
al-qudra) al-ḥaqq fī mirʾāt al-ḥayāt)
Experiential Grasping of divine phenomena Purity of sincerity (ṣafāʾ al-ikhlāṣ)
knowledge (idrāk nawādir al-ulūhiyya)
(maʿrifa)
Love Witnessing of blessings Contentment with the will of
(maḥabba) (mushāhadat al-ālāʾ) the Beloved (al-riḍā bi-murād
al-maḥbūb)
Proximity Pursuit of the lights of the Particularity of love (khāṣṣiyyat
(qurba) attribute (mubāsharat anwār al-maḥabba)
al-ṣifa)
Witnessing Astonishment for the beauty of Subtleties of allusion (Laṭāʾif
(mushāhada) God (al-dahsha fī jamāl al-ḥaqq) al-ishāra)
Drawing Familiarity with the vision of Unveiling of the peculiarities of
closer communion and dissociation the manifestation of the attributes
(mudānāh) from creation (al-istiʾnās (kashf gharāʾib tajallī al-ṣifāt)
bi-ruʾyat al-wiṣāl wa’l-tabarrī
min al-ḥadthān)
Communion Delight in passionate love Love (maḥabba)
(waṣla) (al-ladhdha fī’l-ʿishq)
Divine unity Clothing in divine clothing Stripping off human clothing
(tawḥīd) (al-talabbus bi’l-libās al-rabbānī) (al-insilākh ʿan al-libās al-insānī)
Subsistence Stability (tamkīn) Tranquillity (sakīna)
(baqāʾ)
Expansion Relief by witnessing (al-faraj Serenity (ṭamʾanīna)
(basṭ) bi’l-mushāhada)
Hope (rajāʾ) Longing (shawq) Intimacy (uns)
Extension Unification (ittiḥād) Solitariness and judgement in
(inbisāṭ) presence (al-farīda wa’l-ḥukm
fī’l-ḥaḍra)
Intoxication Sweetness of annihilation Purity of life of the spirit in
(sukr) (ḥalāwat al-fanāʾ) witnessing (ṣafāʾ ʿīsh al-rūḥ
fī’l-mushāhada)
Sobriety Prophetic miracles and Direct knowledge from God
(ṣaḥw) alteration of individualities (al-ʿilm al-ladunī)
(al-muʿjizāt wa-taqallub
al-aʿyān)
Angelic Vision of images of the figures Increase of certainty (mazīd
realm of the spirits (ruʾyat taṣāwīr al-yaqīn)
(malakūt) ashkhāṣ al-arwāḥ)

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Table 3.1 Gardens of the knowers

Garden of Consists of Contains river of
Unveiling Awareness [of God] by the Secrets of perspicacity (asrār
(mukāshafa) characteristic of the ecstasy of al-firāsāt)
pure experiential knowledge
(al-murāqaba bi-naʿt wijdān ṣafāʾ
al-maʿrifa)
Reality Ecstasy of the spirit on the Inconstancy and stability
(ḥaqīqa) stations of togetherness and (al-talwīn wa’l-tamkīn)
separation (wijdān al-rūḥ fī
maqām al-jamʿ wa’l-tafriqa)
Knowledge Repose in ecstatic utterings Diving of the spirit into the sea
(ʿilm) (al-rāḥa fī’l-shaṭḥiyyāt) of reality (ghawṣ al-rūḥ fī baḥr
al-ḥaqīqa)

verse on the rivers of Paradise: Q 47:15. Again, it does not teach us

much about Rūzbihān’s conceptions of the physical hereafter, but
more about how Rūzbihān conceived of the structure of Sufi stations
and states and their interdependence. We will quote it at full length
here to fully appreciate the manner in which Rūzbihān describes
these interiorised gardens:

For the people of truth (ahl al-ḥaqq) there are gardens in their hearts
and minds in this world, and in their spirits and inmost selves. The
garden of the hearts is the garden of perfection (rawḍat al-itqān),
the garden of the minds is the garden of experiential knowledge
(bustān al-ʿirfān), the garden of the spirits is the garden of clear
proof (ḥadīqat al-bayān), and the garden of the inmost selves is the
paradise of eye-witnessing ( firdaws al-ʿiyān). Each of these gardens
has trees, fruits and flowers. The river of the garden of the hearts
is the water of eternal life, which flows in it by the characteristic of
[divine] manifestation (naʿt al-tajallī) from the springs of [divine]
unity (ʿuyūn al-waḥdāniyya), and it is not altered by the muddiness
of the human condition (kudūrāt al-bashariyya). It makes the hearts
alive through the light of certainty so that the death of ignorance
does not come to them. Its trees are the trees of faith, and its fruits
are the lights of certainty.

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The river of the garden of the minds is from the milk of omnipo-
tence (albān al-qudra) from which God gives them to drink, to show
them the purity of the lights of His omnipotence, whose experiential
knowledge­ is­ inherited­ by­ His­ might.­ Its­ trees­ are­ wisdom­ and­ its­
flowers­are­intelligence.
The river of the garden of the spirits is the river of the unveil-
ing of Beauty ( jamāl), whose spring is the sea of Majesty ( jalāl),
from which God gives to drink to make it good through the delight
of beauty and the vision­ of­ Majesty.­ Its­ trees­ are­ love­ (maḥabba),
its­ flowers­ are­ longing­ (shawq), and its fruits are passionate love
(ʿishq).
The river of the garden of inmost selves is the unveiling of
the holy essence (al-dhāt al-muqaddas) from the separation of His
endless emanation ( fayḍ).­God­strengthens­it­with­drinking­until­it­
straightens in its communion (waṣl).­And­there­its­trees­are­unifica-
tion (tawḥīd),­its­flowers­are­solitariness­(tafrīd), and its fruits are
realisation (taḥqīq).
The companions of the hearts are the people of witnessing (ahl
al-shuhūd), the companions of the minds are the people of unveil-
ing (ahl al-kushūf), the companions of the spirits are the people of
drunkenness (sakr) and ecstasy (wajd), and the companions of the
inmost selves are the people of erasure (maḥw) and sobriety (ṣaḥw).
The people of the witnessing are the companions­of­awareness­[of­
God]­(murāqaba), the people of unveiling are the people of stations
(maqāmāt), the people­of­ecstatic­finding­(wujūd) are the people of
states (aḥwāl), and the people of erasure and sobriety are the people
of uprightness (istiqāma).­So­blessed­be­who­has the likes of these
gardens in the abode of examination (dār al-imtiḥān).169

Schematically, this structure of interiorised gardens, rivers, trees,

fruits­and­flowers­would­look­like­Figure­3.1.
This approach comes closest to the description of what Böwering
considers typical for the method and style of commentary in ishārī
works of tafsīr; the Sufi­ commentator­ concentrates­ upon­ a­ short­
phrase­or­specific­term­from­a­verse,­which­becomes the focal point for

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Figure 3.1. Interiorised G ardens

Figure 3.1 Interiorised gardens

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his commentary. This is then associated with ‘the mystical matrix of a

Ṣūfī world of ideas’ in the mind of the interpreter. ‘Exegesis’ becomes
‘eisegesis’ in this process; the commentary is no longer about what
the text itself is supposed to mean, it is about what the interpreter
reads into it.170 In the two passages discussed above, the short phrase
‘gardens under which rivers flow’ is enough for Rūzbihān to allude
to a whole spectrum of grander themes of Sufism, which have virtu-
ally nothing to do with the apparent meaning of the Qurʾanic verse
anymore.

Conclusion

Taking into consideration that a significant number of the verses in

the Qurʾan deal with Paradise and Hell, one might expect to see the
subject covered to a similar degree in the Sufi tafsīr literature.171 These
tafsīr works would thus have great potential as the ideal sources for
reconstructing the early Sufi conceptions of Paradise and Hell that
are so underrepresented in other early Sufi works. The sources do
not entirely live up to that expectation. A close reading of our sources
has taught us that the hereafter was indeed not a major concern of
the authors under scrutiny, and that a large number of eschatological
verses were not commented upon. When these verses did provoke
commentary, it was rather by way of allusion – as one would expect
from an ishārī tafsīr – using an isolated phrase or term from a verse
to allude to ideas, terms and concepts from the broader world of Sufi
imagination instead of using them to further elaborate on the per-
ceived realities of Paradise and Hell from a Sufi perspective. This lack
of significant commentary on the content of the verses itself to build
structured thought on the hereafter is a clear indicator of the general
disregard by Sufi authors in this period for physical descriptions of
Paradise and Hell, as one finds them in the Qurʾan. The hope expressed
in the introduction to this study, that these Qurʾan commentaries
would fill a significant gap in our knowledge on Sufi eschatology, has
therefore only been partly fulfilled thus far. Still, we have been able to
construct a more complete picture of some salient themes.
So which grander eschatological themes do these five commentar-

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ies have in common in the passages that they did comment upon? The
one theme that clearly stands out is that of nearness to, meeting and
communion with, and the vision of God in the hereafter. This theme
was present from the earliest sources included by al-Sulamī, and
remains dominant in all works up to and including Rūzbihān. From
that we can conclude that of the six attitudes identified by Lange, in
our period and our sources the third and fourth attitudes stand out.
Paradise and Hell are not considered the main focus for the believer:
the true motivation should be nearness to, contentment with and
the vision of God. The attitudes of fear of Hell and hope for Paradise
typical of the early renunciants are scarcely found in our sources. A
God-centred Sufism that stresses the love and longing for God has
quite pervasively surpassed these earlier attitudes in the period of
our interest. Paradise only maintains its relevance as an abode of
meeting with and seeing God. With Rūzbihān as the exception, the
theme of Hell is virtually absent in the commentaries for the same
reasons. If it is mentioned, it is rather to stress that distance from God
and being veiled from Him is the true punishment. The authors are
only interested in both abodes of recompense when it is somehow
related to the meeting with and vision of God, or the lack thereof.
This has indeed become the most dominant attitude in the ‘classical’
period. The earlier renunciant attitudes from the formative period
have not even made it into al-Sulamī’s redaction, and thus have not
become part of the canon of ishārī tafsīr.
Another common theme, very much related to the former, is the
tendency to stratify the rewards of Paradise. In all commentaries we
have come across a variant of the division between general believers
and the elite, in which the general believers are distracted by the
physical pleasures of Paradise, while the elite realises that only God
matters. Especially from Maybudī onwards, this comes to the fore
very clearly. This may have something to do with the rise of more
hierarchical structures within Sufism around the same time, in which
the terminology of ʿāmm and khāṣs played an important role.172 This
stress on otherworldly nearness to and vision of God and the related
stratification of rewards in Paradise is not unique to Sufi approaches

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to Paradise per se. The importance of nearness to and vision of God

is well established in Islamic eschatological literature, as well as the
exclusivity of this reward for the highest class of believers.173 Although
Sufis were keen and eager to employ these traditions, as we have seen
in the case of al-Daylamī, they are not typically Sufi or ishārī as such.
What is unique to the Sufis that we have studied is the radicalness
with which they have embraced the idea of the vision of God, and
their use of this idea to establish a hierarchy between the common
believers, who do not understand what Paradise is really about, and
the Sufi elite, who do have this proper understanding. This is also
perhaps the best example of how the hereafter was ‘politicised’ in Sufi
thought. This stratification was not a purely spiritual matter; it had
very tangible consequences for the social and political stratification
of Sufi networks and wider society.174
Two major departures from these general trends can be discerned
in the attitudes towards the hereafter, in the two latest commentaries
under discussion. The first variation is in al-Daylamī’s tafsīr, in which
we have witnessed a radicalisation of the concept of dhamm al-ākhira.
Where the earlier commentaries showed a mere disregard for the
hereafter, al-Daylamī goes as far as to warn that too strong a focus on
recompense in Paradise and Hell can lead to shirk. This is no longer
a mild disregard; this is outright contempt for the hereafter. Although
similar ideas already existed in the formative period, it is nowhere so
pervasively dominant as in al-Daylamī’s commentary.175 It is difficult to
estimate whether this radicalisation was a common characteristic of Sufi
thought in al-Daylamī’s age or whether it was typical only of al-Daylamī.
I tend to believe the latter is the case. Al-Daylamī has been described
as a ‘lone wolf’, and later authorities have not adopted his writings and
thought.176 The fact that this radicalisation was already being tempered
again in the work of Rūzbihān, and that it did not herald an epistemic
shift in the commentary tradition, testifies to this. Al-Daylamī’s ideas on
this matter did not leave a clear mark on the later tradition.
The second deviation from the earlier tradition is the interiorisa-
tion of Paradise and Hell in Rūzbihān’s tafsīr. This might perhaps be
considered an ‘epistemic shift’ in thinking on the hereafter. Although

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immanent conceptions of the hereafter were present from the

formative period onwards and did show up in other commentaries
every now and then, in Rūzbihān’s work it really became a grander
theme. His ideas on the manifestation (tajallī) of God in this world
and the possibility of seeing and witnessing Him foreshadow later
developments in the schools of Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) and Najm
al-Dīn Kubrā (d. 654/1256). Moreover, Rūzbihān’s ideas on the non-
perpetuity and leniency in the punishment of Hell foreshadow ideas
that would become more common, and would be more profoundly
elaborated on, in the thought of Ibn ʿArabī and his school. This study
stops at Rūzbihān, however, and more research is needed to see how
Rūzbihān marks a shift from the ‘classical’ period of Sufism to the
period of the larger Sufi schools.177
In this chapter, we have analysed what our Sufi exegetes thought
Paradise and, to a lesser extent, Hell to be like, and how, therefore,
they conceived of the final boundary crossing of humankind in Islam’s
eschatological meta-structure, from this world to the otherworld. In
the next chapter, we will focus on the initial boundary crossing from
the otherworld to this world: Adam’s banishment from Paradise.
Elaborating, in particular, on the dominance of nearness and vision
that we witnessed in this chapter, we will analyse how these themes
were present in the initial crossing. To what extent was nearness and
vision lost with the banishment from Paradise?

Notes
1 Lange, Paradise and Hell, ch. 7; Lange, ‘Sufi’s Paradise and Hell’, 193–6.
2 Dhamm al-ākhira is our own term for this concept, derived from
dhamm al-dunyā, a common concept in Sufism. Christian Lange calls
this contemptus ultramundi, derived from contemptus mundi (Lange,
Paradise and Hell, ch. 7). Massignon holds that the idea that focusing
on the recompense of Paradise distracts from God is a theme that Islam
has borrowed from Hinduism (Massignon, Essay, 67).
3 Lange, Paradise and Hell, ch. 7.
4 El-Saleh, Vie future, 91–111. See also Vakily, ‘Mystical Significance of
Paradise’, 407–11.

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5 El-Saleh, Vie future, 91; Böwering, ‘Commentary of al-Sulamī’, 42–3;

Godlas, ‘Ṣūfism’, 351–2; Ateș, İşârî tefsîr okulu, 3–8.
6 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 2:203.
7 Ibid., 2:236. A variant on this quote is also included by al-Sulamī in
his minor commentary. At the end of that quote, a credal statement is
added on the modality of the vision of God: ‘{What the souls desire}
is the Garden and its bliss and the breeze (al-rawḥ) therein to the
greatest contentment (al-riḍwān al-akbar). {And enraptures the eye}
[means that] a knower (ʿārif) and a lover (muḥibb) is enraptured only
by looking at the object of his experiential knowledge (maʿrūf) and his
beloved (maḥbūb). And what the souls desire is in comparison to what
enraptures the eyes of the bliss (al-naʿīm) like a drop in the oceans. The
souls desire food and drink and the bliss in the Garden, and the eyes are
enraptured by looking at God without mentioning how (bi-lā kayfiyya).’
Sulamī, Ziyādāt, 168.
8 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 2:53.
9 Ibid., 2:345.
10 Ibid., 2:369.
11 Ibid., 2:382.
12 Ibid., 2:291.
13 El-Saleh, Vie future, 95–6. To Rābiʿa the following saying is attributed,
which is often considered the symbol of the shift from asceticism to
love-based mysticism: ‘I have not served God from fear of Hell, for I
should be but a wretched hireling if I did it from fear; nor from love of
Paradise, for I should be a bad servant if I served for the sake of what
was given me, but I have served Him only for the love of Him and desire
of Him.’ EI2, s.v. ‘Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya al-Ḳaysiyya’, by. M. Smith, 8:355.
14 El-Saleh, Vie future, 93.
15 Dhū’l-Nūn still deserves more historicising research than is currently
available. A good recent overview can be found in Michael Ebstein,
‘Dū l-Nūn al-Miṣrī and Early Islamic Mysticism’, Arabica 61 (2014):
559–612. A previous attempt to place Dhū’l-Nūn in his historical envi-
ronment was made by Josef van Ess, ‘Der Kreis des Dhū al-Nūn’, Die
Welt des Orients 12 (1981): 99–106.
16 The root w-q-y has multilayered meanings within the Qurʾanic dis-
course, with its most important derivations being the noun taqwā and
the verb ittaqa. In this book I have chosen to translate the noun as

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‘God-wariness’ and the verb as ‘being wary’. I believe these are closest
to the original meaning of the root letters, which have the connotation
of ‘to guard oneself from’ or ‘to be wary of’. For a discussion of the word
taqwā in the Qurʾan, see Erik S. Ohlander, ‘Fear of God (Taqwā) in the
Qurʾān: Some Notes on Semantic Shift and Thematic Context’, Journal of
Semitic Studies 50, no. 1 (2005): 137–52.
17 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 2:20–1.
18 As Josef van Ess explains it in the context of al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243/857):
‘Das tawahhum führt ihn dazu, das Gericht zu fürchten und reuig
umzukehren; darum wird er sich im Jenseits nicht mehr zu fürchten
brauchen.’ Josef van Ess, Die Gedankenwelt des Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī
(Bonn: Selbstverlag des Orientalischen Seminars der Universität Bonn,
1961), 137–8.
19 For a detailed monograph on this tafsīr, see Böwering, Mystical Vision.
All English quotes from the Tafsīr al-Tustarī in this study are taken from
the translation by Annabel Keeler and Ali Keeler (Louisville, KY: Fons
Vitae, 2011).
20 Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Tustarī (trans. Keeler and Keeler), 120.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid., 121.
23 Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Tustarī (trans. Keeler and Keeler), 116.
24 Ibid., 114.
25 Ibid., 130, 149, 169.
26 Ibid., 181.
27 Ibid., 233.
28 Ibid., 171.
29 Ibid., 239.
30 Ibid., 156.
31 Ibid., 158.
32 Ibid., 176.
33 Ibid., 170. Ruʾyat al-janna most likely means the vision of God in
Paradise here. The Arabic is ambiguous, however, and might also mean
the vision of Paradise itself.
34 Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Tustarī (trans. Keeler and Keeler), 184–5, 258.
35 Ibid., 193.
36 Ibid., 185, 193.
37 It is only then that he, in one of two instances in the entire tafsīr,

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quotes one of the famous sayings by Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya (d. 185/801)

renouncing the otherworld: ‘My Lord, I love this world only that I might
remember You in it, and I love the Hereafter only because I may see You
there . . . My Lord, do not bring upon me these two things for I will not
be able to bear them: burning in Hell and separation from You.’ Tustarī,
Tafsīr al-Tustarī (trans. Keeler and Keeler), 258.
38 In the Tustarī tradition there is also a story, not mentioned in the
tafsīr, of Sahl crossing the boundary the other way, visiting Paradise
and conversing with three hundred prophets assembled there. Gerhard
Böwering, ‘From the Word of God to the Vision of God: Muḥammad’s
Heavenly Journey in Classical Ṣūfī Qurʾān Commentary’, in Le voyage
initiatique en terre d’Islam: ascensions célestes et itineraires spirituels, ed.
Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi (Leuven and Paris: Peeters, 1996), 211.
39 Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Tustarī (trans. Keeler and Keeler), 15.
40 Ibid., 260.
41 Ibid., 253.
42 Ibid., 73, 113, 207.
43 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 2:17.
44 Ibid., 2:207.
45 Ibid., 2:296.
46 Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Tustarī (trans. Keeler and Keeler), 217.
47 Abū’l-Ḥasan Ismāʿīl al-Ashʿarī, Kitāb maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn wa-ikhtilāf
al-muṣallīn, ed. Helmut Ritter (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1963),
289, 438–9. The students of ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd (d. c. 132/750)
also claimed to enter Paradise every night during this-worldly life and
to eat from its fruits. This is disapprovingly mentioned by al-Sarrāj
in his Kitāb al-lumaʿ as a deception by devils. Abū Naṣr ʿAbd Allāh b.
ʿAlī al-Sarrāj al-Ṭūṣī, The ‘Kitāb al-lumaʿ fī’l-taṣawwuf’, ed. Reynold A.
Nicholson (Leiden: Brill, 1914), 429. For more discussions on similar
issues of boundary crossing, see Chapter 5.
48 EI2, s.v. ‘al-Kharrāz’, by W. Madelung, 4:1083–4. Unfortunately this
treatise, Kitāb ruʾyat al-qulūb, is lost. See Chapter 5, note 26.
49 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:388. This does not necessarily have to be in conflict
with the view mentioned before. Lā yubṣiru might well have the con-
notation of ‘does not pay attention to’, and have nothing to do with the
actual vision of God.
50 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 2:170.

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51 Ibid., 2:202.
52 Ibid., 1:393.
53 Ibid., 1:322.
54 The claim to see God in a dream can be found in canonical hadith
literature and is not restricted to Sufism per se. See Pierre Lory, ‘La
vision de dieu dans l’onirocritique musulmane médiévale’, in Reason
and Inspiration in Islam: Theology, Philosophy and Mysticism in Muslim
Thought: Essays in Honour of Hermann Landolt, ed. Todd Lawson
(London: I. B. Tauris, 2005), 353–63. However, these sometimes seem-
ingly anthropomorphic traditions were not always considered unprob-
lematic and were discussed and debated in special treatises. Some
of this material on seeing God in the form of a beardless young man
later made it into literature on problematic narrations, e.g. al-Suyūṭī’s
al-Laʾālī al-maṣnūʿa fī’l-aḥādīth al-mawḍūʿa and ʿAlī al-Qārī’s al-Asrār
al-marfūʿa, perhaps because of its too explicit anthropomorphism.
See Helmut Ritter, ‘Philologica II’, Der Islam 17, no. 1 (1928): 256–7;
Richard Gramlich, Der eine Gott: Grundzüge der Mystik der islamischen
Monotheismus (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1998), 136–7. We will
come back to this more profoundly in Chapter 5.
55 Carl W. Ernst, Words of Ecstacy in Sufism (Albany, NY: SUNY Press,
1985), 105–6.
56 Richard Gramlich, Abu l-ʿAbbās B. ʿAṭāʾ: Sufi und Koranausleger
(Stuttgart: Steiner, 1995), 1–5.
57 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:119.
58 Ibid., 2:297.
59 Ibid., 1:224.
60 Ibid., 1:449.
61 Ibid., 1:225.
62 Ibid., 1:371.
63 Ibid., 1:410.
64 Ibid., 1:289, 385.
65 Ibid., 1:123.
66 See Lange, Paradise and Hell, ch. 7.
67 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:107. Similar quotes are attributed to al-Wāsiṭī and
Ibn ʿAṭāʾ.
68 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:364.
69 Ibid., 1:65.

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70 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, 3:51.

71 For a thorough study of the ideas on al-barzakh in the Islamic tradition,
see Ragnar Eklund, Life between Death and Resurrection according to
Islam (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1941).
72 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, 1:246, 251.
73 Ibid., 1:252.
74 Ibid., 1:251.
75 Ibid., 3:374.
76 Ibid., 1:168–9.
77 Ibid., 1:349.
78 Ibid., 1:219.
79 Ibid., 1:303.
80 Ibid., 1:283–4.
81 Ibid., 3:352.
82 Ibid., 1:88–9.
83 Carl W. Ernst has made a similar point on Sufi poetry. Ernst contends
that whether a poem is ‘Sufi’ or not depends more on whether it is
being read in a Sufi context than on whether it was written by a Sufi or
has explicitly Sufi content. The intent of the reader matters more than
the intent of the author. Carl W. Ernst, ‘What is Early Arabic Sufi Poetry?
Prologomenon to a Translation of the Poetry of al-Hallaj’ (unpublished
essay, 2014). A lot of the love poetry cited in the Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt, for
example, was originally composed in a non-religious context referring
to secular love. Al-Qushayrī subsequently quotes it in an explicitly reli-
gious context and plays with the love content in the relationship of the
believer to God. Thus he transforms secular love poetry to Sufi poetry
by his readership of it rather than by its authorial intent. See Sands,
‘Subtleties’, 9–10. For a full account of the poetry cited by al-Qushayrī,
see Aḥmad Amīn Muṣṭafā, Takhrīj abyāt Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt (Cairo:
Maṭbaʿat al-saʿāda, 1986).
84 For my selection of relevant passages, I am greatly indebted to Keeler’s
Sufi Hermeneutics and to Chittick’s Divine Love, which have proven very
helpful in navigating this voluminous Qurʾan commentary.
85 Maybudī, Kashf, 9:346–7.
86 Ibid., 8:441.
87 Maybudī, Kashf, 1:469. The same quote later reappears attributed to
Anṣārī. Maybudī, Kashf, 8:441.

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88 ‘Akthar ahl al-janna al-bulh’. See Abū Bakr Aḥmad al-Bayhaqī, Shuʿab
al-īmān, ed. ʿAbd al-ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Ḥāmid (Riyadh: Maktabat al-
Rushd li’l-nashr wa’l-tawzīʿ, 2003), 2:391.
89 Maybudī, Kashf, 8:250.
90 Maybudī, Kashf, 6:574–5; Chittick, Divine Love, 220.
91 Tabattul is a term hardly ever found in the handbooks of Sufism. It is
derived from Q 73:8: wa-tabattal ilayhi tabtīlan (and devote yourself to
Him with devotion). See Nwyia, Exégèse coranique, 54.
92 Maybudī, Kashf, 10:274. Translation from Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics,
163­–4.
93 For the sociopolitical implications of this Sufi tendency to establish
spiritual hierarchies, see Anjum, ‘Mystical Authority’, 71–81.
94 He derives this relationship from Q 79:40–1: ‘Who fears the stand-
ing before his Lord and forbids the lower self from caprice, surely the
Garden is the refuge.’
95 Again, he derives this relationship from a Qurʾanic passage. Q 9:72
reads ‘and good dwellings in the Garden of Eden; and contentment
from God is greater’.
96 Maybudī, Kashf, 2:42–3; Chittick, Divine Love, 174.
97 Maybudī, Kashf, 2:42–3.
98 Maybudī, Kashf, 3:311; Chittick, Divine Love, 96.
99 Maybudī, Kashf, 8:168–9; Chittick, Divine Love, 178-79.
100 Maybudī, Kashf, 7:152; Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 167-68.
101 Maybudī, Kashf, 5:167; Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 168.
102 Although not quoted explicitly by Maybudī, the tradition of samāʿ in
Paradise and David reciting from the Psalms goes back to Dhū’l-Nūn
al-Miṣrī. See Massignon, Essay, 144.
103 This pure wine is elsewhere described as ‘the wine of communion [with
God]’ (sharāb-i waṣl) (Maybudī, Kashf, 7:377). In my translation of waṣl
as ‘communion’ instead of the more common ‘union’, I follow the opin-
ion of Barbara von Schlegell, who warns of too excessive use of the term
‘union’ as translations for Sufi terminology. Von Schlegell, ‘Translating
Sufism’, 583–4.
104 Maybudī, Kashf, 8:249–50.
105 Ibid., 1:27; 7:377.
106 Ibid., 1:469.
107 Ibid., 7:377–8.

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108 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fol. 78a (Q 12:108).

109 Ibid., fol. 38b (Q 5:41).
110 Ibid., fol. 88a (Q 18:28).
111 Ibid., fols 28a­–b (Q 4:1).
112 Ibid., fols 85b–86a (Q 17:23). To support this idea, he quotes a hadith
that is more frequently quoted by Sufi authors, which states: ‘O God, I
take my refuge in You from You, and I escape from You towards You.’
113 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fol. 144b (Q 76:14).
114 Ibid., fol. 93a (Q 20:12). This example was more widespread in Sufi writ-
ings. It can, for example, also be found in al-Ghazālī’s Mishkāt al-anwār.
W. H. T. Gairdner, trans., Al-Ghazzālī’s ‘Mishkāt al-anwār’ (The Niche for
Lights): A Translation with Introduction (London: Royal Asiatic Society,
1924), 75.
115 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fol. 20a (Q 3:14–15). In the same passage,
al-Daylamī holds yet another opinion about the meaning of al-riḍwān:
‘Know that in the world of omnipotence (ʿālam al-jabarūt) there is a
tree whose length, number of branches and its permeation to the sides
only God the Exalted knows. It is pure, sanctified, and its lowest founda-
tion is in the paradisiacal gardens of al-Quds ( farādīs al-Quds). And it
is clear as cold water or as crystal. Its colour is green-like. That tree is
called al-riḍwān. Who attains it, has attained the biggest contentment
(al-riḍwān al-akbar), God willing.’
116 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fol. 17b (Q 2:269).
117 ‘Al-Dunyā ḥarām ʿalā ahl al-ākhira, wa’l-ākhira ḥarām ʿalā ahl al-dunyā,
wa-humā ḥarāmān ʿalā ahl Allāh.’ The Turkish editor of the commentary
traces this obscure hadith back to a collection of forgeries. See Ismāʿīl
b. Muḥammad al-ʿAjlūnī, Kashf al-khafāʾ wa-muzīl al-ilbās ʿammā ish-
tahara min al-aḥādīth ʿalā alsinat al-nās, ed. Aḥmad al-Qalāsh (Beirut:
Muʾassasat al-risāla, n.d.), 1:410.
118 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fols 17b–18b (Q 2:267–9).
119 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fols 25b–26a (Q 3:92).
120 Q 5:43.
121 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fol. 103a (Q 25:43).
122 Ibid., fol. 30b ( Q4:48).
123 Ibid., fols 55a–b ( Q7:29).
124 ‘He described al-muḥsinīn in this surah when He said: {Those who live
in awe for the fear of their Lord; and those who believe in the signs of

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their Lord; and those who do not associate anything with their Lord}
(Q 23:57–9), which means they do not take as partners the Garden and
the Fire, this world, and the otherworld in the longing for it and the
fear of it, to His saying, the Exalted:{And those who give what they give
while their hearts are full of fear because of the return to their Lord}
(Q 23:60), which means they perform their works of obedience {while
their hearts}, meaning their interiors, are afraid of inclining towards
the acts of obedience, and see {that they return to their Lord} not to the
Garden or the Fire.’ Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fol. 98a (Q 23:1–11).
125 Ibid.
126 Ibid., fol. 146b (Q 83:15).
127 Ibid., fol. 95b (Q 21:102). This saying is also to be found in al-Sulamī’s
Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr. See Paul Nwyia, ‘Le tafsīr d’Ibn ʿAṭā (m. 309/921)
extrait des Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsir de Sulamī’, in Trois oeuvres inédites de
mystiques musulmans: S̆ aqīq al-Balḫī, Ibn ʻAṭā, Niffarī, ed. Paul Nwyia
(Beirut: Dar El-Machreq, 1973), 96.
128 The Muʿtazilīs, arguing against the vision of God, would understand
ilā rabbihā nāẓira as ‘waiting for [the reward of] their Lord’ rather
than ‘gazing at’. Anthony K. Tuft, ‘The Origins and Development of
the Controversy over “Ruʾya” in Medieval Islam and its Relation
to Contemporary Visual Theory’ (PhD dissertation, University of
California, Los Angeles, 1979), 103–19.
129 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fols 143b–145a (Q 75:22–3). Also in his
commentary on that other central Qurʾanic verse used as proof of oth-
erworldly vision, Q 10:26, he gives the conventional Ashʿarī position
that ziyāda is the vision of God with the eye in the hereafter. Daylamī,
‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fol. 71a.
130 For a more detailed discussion of these different theological perspec-
tives on the issue of the vision of God, see Chapter 5.
131 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fols 143b–145a (Q 75:22–3).
132 In his commentary on Q 6:101 he further confirms this view, stating
that who sees God in this world and does not die by what he saw, is
not capable of understanding, nor of expressing what he saw. Daylamī,
‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fol. 48b (Q 6:101).
133 Ibid., fol. 78a (Q 12:108).
134 Ibid., fol. 143b–145a (Q 75:22–3).
135 Ibid., fol. 43b (Q 6:30). This question reappears in later periods of

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Sufism. Aḥmad b. ʿAjība (d. 1224/1809), for example, mentions ʿAbd

al-Karīm al-Jīlī (d. 827/1424) to have held that some people in Hell are
more privileged than some people in Paradise, because God will mani-
fest Himself to them and they will see Him, a privilege not everyone in
Paradise enjoys. Aḥmad b. ʿAjība, al-Baḥr al-madīd fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān
al-majīd, ed. ʿUmar Aḥmad al-Rāwī (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya,
2010), 5:270–1.
136 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fol. 53b (Q 6:129).
137 Ibid., fol. 71a (Q 10:25). The same idea we can find in his treatise Mirʾāt
al-arwāḥ, in which he describes how dunyā, ākhira and ʿaql form devi-
ating paths which keep one away from the only path that matters, the
path of God (ṣirāṭ Allāh). Abū Thābit Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī, ‘Mirʾāt
al-arwāḥ’, Şehid Ali Pasha, Istanbul, MS 1346, fol. 61a.
138 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fols 74a–b (Q 11:123). We most famously
know the idea of eschatology as a return to God from the works of
Ibn al-ʿArabī, who distinguishes between a compulsory return (rujūʿ
iḍṭirārī), which is death as we know it, and a voluntary return (rujūʿ
ikhtiyārī), which is a symbolic ‘death before death’. For an analysis, see
Chittick, ‘Death and the World of Imagination’. Al-Daylamī predates Ibn
al-ʿArabī and his choice of terms is clearly different, but some concep-
tual similarities can be found. For example, he holds that a return to
God in the form of repentance is chosen (bi’l-ikhtiyār).
139 For a discussion of the ‘certainty of salvation’ in medieval Islamic tradi-
tion, see Christian Lange, Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim
Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 101–15.
140 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 1:195.
141 Ibid., 1:195.
142 Ibid., 1:438.
143 Abū’l-Qāsim Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf ʿan
ḥaqāʾiq al-tanzīl wa-ʿuyūn al-aqāwīl fī wujūh al-taʾwīl (Beirut: Dār
al-maʿrifa, n.d.), 2:81–2; Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr al-kabīr (Cairo:
al-Maṭbaʿat al-bahiyya al-miṣriyya, 1938), 14:92–4.
144 See Q 12:31.
145 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 1:439.
146 Ibid., 1:439. These lines of poetry are also quoted by al-Qushayrī in
his commentary on the same verse (Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, 1:538). Neither
Rūzbihān and al-Qushayrī mentions the original author of the verses.

132

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It is attributed to the collection of poetry al-Basīṭ by the Basran Abū

Bakr Muḥammad b. Hāshim al-Khālidī (d. 380/990). See Shihāb al-Dīn
Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. Faḍl Allāh al-Qurashī al-ʿAdawī al-ʿUmarī, Masālik
al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār (Abu Dhabi: Al-Majmaʿ al-thaqāfī, 2002),
15:261.
147 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 2:136. This verse has frequently been used as proof of the
idea that Hell is not eternal. For the theme of the non-perpetuity of the
punishment in Hell and of salvation for non-Muslims, see Mohammad
H. Khalil, Islam and the Fate of Others: The Salvation Question (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012).
148 The sea of life seems to be a variant reading of the more common
concept of the ‘river of life’ (nahr al-ḥayawān or nahr al-ḥayyāt). This
concept is mentioned in eschatological hadiths, and refers to a river in
which the inhabitants of Hell are washed clean from the black marks
of the burning in Hell before they enter Paradise. See Lange, Justice,
Punishment, 147.
149 See Q 50:30: ‘The day that God says to Jahannam “Are you filled?” and
Jahannam answers, “Is there more?”’
150 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 3:336. These are ideas that in approximately the same
period are also expressed by Ibn al-ʿArabī. See William C. Chittick, ‘Ibn
al-ʿArabī’s Hermeneutics of Mercy,’ in Mysticism and Sacred Scripture,
ed. Stephen T. Katz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 153–68;
Khalil, Islam and the Fate of Others.
151 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 1:33, 88, 104, 221.
152 Ibid., 3:28, 41, 49, 97.
153 Ibid., 1:201.
154 Ibid., 2:93.
155 Ibid., 3:112.
156 Ibid., 1:83.
157 Ibid., 1:93.
158 Ibid., 1:379.
159 Ibid., 2:170.
160 Ibid., 1:224.
161 Ibid., 2:238.
162 The same idea is attributed to Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī (d. c. 261/874–5),
also quoted by Rūzbihān in the same passage: ‘Abū Yazīd – may God
sanctify his spirit – said: ‘Were they veiled in the Garden for the blink of

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an eye from the meeting with Him, life would be spoilt for the people of
the Garden.’ Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 2:465–6.
163 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 3:305–6.
164 Ibid., 1:38; 2:68, 293, 316, 534.
165 Ibid., 2:7.
166 Ibid., 1:38.
167 For another example of interiorised gardens, see Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 2:466.
168 Ibid., 1:38.
169 Ibid., 3:305–6.
170 Gerhard Böwering, ‘The Scriptural “Senses” in Medieval Ṣūfī Qurʾān
Exegesis’, in With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis
in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, eds Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Barry D.
Walfish and Joseph W. Goering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003),
348.
171 Lange estimates the amount of eschatological verses in the Qurʾan to
be around one tenth of the total, perhaps even more. Part of the trouble
in counting the verses that deal with Paradise and Hell, is that many
verses allude to them implicitly. See Lange, Paradise and Hell, 37–9.
172 See Anjum, ‘Mystical Authority’; Jonathan A. C. Brown, ‘The Last Days
of al-Ghazzālī and the Tripartite Division of the Sufi World: Abū Ḥāmid
al-Ghazzālī’s Letter to the Seljuq Vizier and Commentary’, The Muslim
World 96 (2006): 89–113.
173 See Aziz al-Azmeh, ‘Rhetoric for the Senses: A Consideration of Muslim
Paradise Narratives’, Journal of Arabic Literature 26, no. 3 (1995):
227–31; Lange, Paradise and Hell, ch. 5.
174 See Anjum, ‘Mystical Authority’.
175 For more sayings representative of this contempt for the hereafter, see
Lange’s description of the fourth attitude (Lange, Paradise and Hell, ch.
7).
176 ‘The conclusion seems inescapable that al-Dailamī was something of
a lone wolf; and this would account for the oblivion into which his
voluminous writings have fallen’ (Arberry, ‘Works of al-Dailamī’, 51).
177 A further in-depth study of Rūzbihān’s commentary – especially on
the concept of tajallī – may offer a better understanding of how Ibn
al-ʿArabī’s ideas related to ideas that already existed in his broader
environment.

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4
The First Boundary Crossing:
Adam Descending

Introduction

In Islamic traditions, as well as in Jewish and Christian traditions,

Adam represents more than his own identity as a prophet or the first
man: he is a paradigmatic human being. Adam’s constitution is con-
sidered to be that of humankind as a whole. Therefore, when we as
historians of religion study narratives of Adam in these traditions,
we study more than just Adam; we are engaged in anthropology and
our question becomes what is a human according to these religious
traditions? When we discuss narratives on Adam’s banishment from
Paradise to this-worldly life, it is thus not only about the event as
such; the narratives under scrutiny express deeper concerns within
these religious traditions about the meaning and appreciation of this-
worldly life for the whole of humankind. This is equally the case with
Sufism. Paul Nwyia has noted that ‘intériorisation des figures prophé-
tiques’ is emblemic for Sufi understandings of the Qurʾan:

In their meditation on the Qurʾan, the figures of the prophets become

prototypes of mystic experience or figures of religious conscious-
ness. That which they read in the stories of the ancients (akhbār
al-awwalīn) are not ‘histories’ but a lesson (ʿibra), a doctrine on the

135

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relationships between God and man. In this way Abraham becomes

the figure of suffering but faithful consciousness or the prototype
of friendship with God, Moses, the figure of spiritual experience as
dialogue with God, etc.1

The question of Adam’s banishment from Paradise has raised

some fundamental questions about the nature of evil in the religious
thought of the monotheistic traditions.2 Von Grunebaum has argued
that evil is only accidental in Islam, not structural, as opposed to
Christianity where it is both structural and accidental. The banish-
ment from Paradise is the effect of an act of human fallibility, noth-
ing more, nothing less. He holds that the question of evil, and with
it the fall of Adam, is thus not as constitutive for Islam as it is for
Christianity, where the coming of Christ is necessary to resolve the
primal disorder brought about by Adam’s fall.3 In Islamic tradition,
the character of Iblīs (Satan), the story of his refusal to bow down
before Adam and his subsequent banishment could be more impor-
tant than Adam’s fall for understanding the place of evil within Islam.4
As we will see in this chapter, in the case of Sufism one could even
legitimately argue whether the word ‘fall’ should be used at all for the
banishment of Adam, since not all Sufi authors saw it as a degradation
of Adam’s status at all, or that of humankind, but in fact quite the
contrary. Therefore, we use the more neutral word ‘banishment’ to
signify this event.
So, if the primary function of the Adam narrative in Islamic tradi-
tions is not there to explain the presence of evil in the world, then
what function does it have? In this chapter, we look for an answer by
discussing several aspects of Adam’s banishment within Sufi imagi-
naries. First, we consider why, according to our authors, Adam ‘had’
to be banished: how do they place the narrative within God’s larger
(eschatological) plan for humankind, and how do they deal with the
questions of predestination and theodicy related to it? Second, we try
to understand what exactly our authors held to have been ‘lost’ by
the banishment: what constitutes the yearning for Paradise during
this-worldly life? What is it that can be regained?

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 the first boundary crossing | 137

To start with, we will take a short look at the Qurʾanic narra-

tive and note some general points of discussion in the conventional
works of theology and tafsīr, most notably the school of Nishapur.
Then, after presenting a typology of attitudes towards the banishment
found in non-tafsīr sources, we will go through our Sufi commentaries
chronologically.

Adam in the Qurʾan

Adam as an individual person is mentioned eighteen times in dif-

ferent verses in the Qurʾan. A significant part of these verses deals
with the creation of Adam and his sojourning in and banishment from
Paradise, most notably Q 2:30–5, 7:11–25 and 20:115–23. In these
specific passages, the narrative is preceded by the story of the refusal
of Iblīs to bow down before Adam and his subsequent banishment.
In short, we read in the Qurʾan the following. God announces the
creation of humankind from clay (Q 15:26; 17:61) to be a ‘vicegerent’
(khalīfa) on earth. The angels question God’s plan because they fore-
see humanity shedding blood and spreading corruption on earth, to
which God responds, ‘I know what you do not know’ (Q 2:30). God
then teaches Adam the names of everything and the angels recognise
that they do not possess this knowledge (Q 2:31–3). God subsequently
demands from the angels that they prostrate before Adam, which they
all do except for Iblīs, who arrogantly refuses because ‘You created me
from fire and created him from clay’ (Q 7:11–12; 2:34; 15:31; 17:61;
18:50; 20:116; 38:74). God places Adam and his unnamed spouse
in the Garden (al-janna), where they can eat what they want as long
as they do not approach one specific tree, ‘lest you do not become
angels or immortal’ (Q 7:20). However, Satan causes them to ‘slip up’
( fa-azallahumā al-shayṭān ʿanhā) (Q 2:36) and to eat from ‘the tree
of immortality and a power that does not yield’ (shajarat al-khuld
wa-mulkin lā yablā) (Q 20:120). After this, they become aware of their
nakedness and try to clothe themselves with leaves from Paradise
(Q 20:121; 7:22). God banishes them from Paradise, commanding
them to descend together with Satan as enemies of each other (Q 2:36;
20:122–3). On earth they have ‘a dwelling place and a provision for

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a time’ (Q 2:36). God gives Adam ‘words’ (kalimāt) to repent and

accepts his repentance (Q 2:37).5

The Banishment of Adam in Tafsīr, Narrative Religious

Literature and Theology

Before moving on to the discussion of the banishment of Adam in

Sufism in general and in Sufi Qurʾan commentaries in particular,
we will have a closer look at some aspects of the banishment as
discussed in conventional tafsīr works, in narrative religious litera-
ture (the genre of qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ or ‘tales of the prophets’) and in
theology. In Jamāʿī-Sunnī Islam the banishment of Adam has mainly
been discussed in hadith literature, tafsīr and in qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ.6
Apart from a lot of details on the particularities of the story, some
attention has been paid in this literature to Adam’s sin and to the
theological problems it poses in relation to the impeccability (ʿiṣma)
of the prophets and to predestination (al-qadr wa’l-qaḍāʾ).7 Once the
doctrine of impeccability had become dominant in Islamic theology,
it challenged the interpretation of Adam’s banishment in the Qurʾan
and hadith.8 The general tendency is to belittle the sin of Adam – if
considered a sin at all – by referring to it as a mere mistake (for exam-
ple, Adam did not understand the prohibition properly and thought
it applied only to the specific tree alluded to, not the entire species),
forgetfulness (using Q 20:115 in the argument), or by imposing the
burden of the sin on his spouse, Eve.9 On the issue of predestination,
the general tendency is to point out how all events that happened to
Adam and Eve were decreed thousands of years in advance and were
thus inevitable.10
The consequences of Adam’s sin have received a fair amount
of attention in the narratives on Adam. The most important conse-
quences were considered a loss of ‘completeness’ in several aspects,
both physical and intellectual.11 The loss of nearness to God, a typical
Sufi eschatological theme as we have seen in Chapter 3, also found its
way into more conventional retellings of the Adam story. For example,
al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035) reports a long quote in his Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ
from the early Sufi authority al-Shiblī, who says in relation to Q 7:24

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(‘Go down as enemies to each other’) that ‘it does not befit who diso-
beys Us [God] to be in Our proximity’.12
The commentaries of the contemporaries to al-Sulamī and
al-Qushayrī in the school of Nishapur are most important for us to
understand how these two Sufi Qurʾan commentaries are placed
within their wider scholarly context. They generally do not offer
elaborate narratives on the nature of Adam’s sin, the deeper reasons
for the banishment, or its place within God’s greater plan for human-
kind; at least, it is not given as much attention as one would expect for
such a seemingly pivotal cornerstone of religious anthropology. They
deal mainly with ostensibly trivial questions such as what kind of tree
it was, how Satan was able to enter the Garden, whether the Garden
was in Heaven or on Earth, where Adam and Eve were sent down to,
and so on.
Al-Māwardī (d. 450/1058) mentions four prevailing opinions
about Adam’s act in his commentary al-Nukat wa’l-ʿuyūn.13 The first
is that Adam forgot the prohibition, as mentioned in Q 20:115. The
argument, then, is that prophets forgetting a prohibition is a form of
disobedience to God, because of their superior knowledge and high
rank. The second is that he ate from it while he was drunk and was
held responsible for it as if he was sober. The third is that he ate from
it wilfully and with knowledge of the prohibition. He indeed slipped
up (zalla) and he should indeed be blamed for wilful disobedience.
The fourth is the most remarkable explanation: Adam justified it to
himself by interpreting (taʾwīl) the prohibition falsely. He slipped up
because the evidence (dalīl) was covered up by Iblīs (Q 7:22). It should
not, therefore, be considered a major sin (kabīra), of which prophets
are free.14 Al-Māwardī himself is quite sure that indeed they did not
realise that it was an act of disobedience. Otherwise Adam would not
have done it, since he could not commit a major sin.15
Al-Thaʿlabī, in his commentary Al-Kashf wa’l-bayān ʿan tafsīr
al-Qurʾān, treats neither the issue of impeccability nor the issue of
predestination extensively. He only briefly states that God’s announce-
ment that He shall make a vicegerent on earth indicates that God pre-
destined Adam’s banishment from the Garden by his sin to fulfil this

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vicegerency on earth. Al-Thaʿlabī also mentions the hadith in which

Adam and Moses debate Adam’s responsibility for the banishment of
the whole of humankind.16 Al-Thaʿlabī’s direct student al-Wāḥidī (d.
468/1076) mentions a couple of the aforementioned interpretations
of Adam’s sin in his largely philological and linguistic extended com-
mentary al-Basīṭ. He concludes his summary by stating that it surely
was an act of disobedience (maʿṣiya), but that it was committed before
he had the status of a prophet.17 In so doing, he follows the main-
stream Ashʿarī position on the issue of the impeccability of ­prophets:
prophetic figures are capable of committing major sins (kabāʾir)
before their prophetic mission begins. As for the main loss caused by
the banishment, he mentions status (manzila) and easy livelihood.18
In his conventional commentary (the second nawbat), Maybudī
shows a specific interest in Adam’s slip-up, and gives a lengthy expla-
nation on the nature of mistakes and sins among prophets. He upholds
a typical Ḥanbalī perspective on the matter, recognising minor sins
(ṣaghāʾir) as possible, but ruling out major sins (kabāʾir). The wisdom
of the prophets committing minor sins is that it humbles them and
leads them to the praiseworthy, pious acts of asking pardon and
supplication. He also quotes the aforementioned argument between
Adam and Moses, and points out that Adam’s sin was predestined
with the aim of making him vicegerent on earth.19
In conclusion, we can state that the conventional tafsīr literature
of the period is rather brief and technical on the verses related to
the banishment of Adam. It hardly offers larger narratives or deeper
reflection on the theological problems that the Adam narrative in the
Qurʾan poses.

The Banishment of Adam in Sufism: Non-tafsīr Sources

In early Sufism there was hardly an elaborate prophetology of Adam

available in separate treatises. Most Sufi material on Adam deals with
the refusal of Iblīs to follow the command of God to prostrate before
him. In fact, the main character of interest in these narratives is Iblīs.
Adam mainly figures in the background to make a point about the
character of Iblīs.20 Where Adam does receive specific mention, we

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can roughly distinguish between two approaches to his descending to

this-worldly life. The first is an explicitly negative approach in early
renunciant Sufism that stresses the vileness of this-worldly life. The
second is a slightly more positive approach that considers Adam’s
sin an act that elevated humankind by bringing them an experience
that they would not otherwise have attained. This-worldly life is not a
negative consequence of Adam’s act in this approach, but something
that humankind has to go through – and that God intended them to go
through – for their own benefit.
Adam’s banishment evoked some interest among early authors,
mostly in isolated sayings. Some of these sayings seem to have a
background in the early zuhd movement, and express an explicitly
negative attitude towards this-worldly life, insinuating that it is com-
parable to a place for defecation. Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī allegedly stated
that the first thing Adam did when he descended from Paradise was
to relieve himself of excrement.21 Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 386/996)
wrote in his Qūt al-qulūb that one consequence of eating from the
tree was that Adam developed the need to evacuate his bowels; it
was only the fruits of this specific tree that had that quality, which
was the reason for the prohibition to eat from it. Adam requested a
place to defecate, but was answered that no place in Paradise was
suitable for that purpose. He had to be banished to this world in
order to relieve himself.22
Another approach to Adam’s banishment is related to the Sufi
tendency to direct all attention and motivation to God, at the cost of
being motivated by anything that is created, even otherworldly rec-
ompense. For Ibn ʿAṭāʾ, for example, eating from the tree was a form of
idolatry, because Adam sought eternity through something other than
God. He quotes Adam as saying that he does not understand why God
has punished him; after all, his motivation to eat from the tree was to
be eternally near to God. God reproaches him:

Adam, you have sought your immortality (khulūd) from the tree, not
from Me, while immortality is through my power ( yad, lit. hand) and
might (mulk). So you have ascribed partners to Me, even though you

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did not realise it. But I called [this to] your attention by expelling
you, so that you would not forget Me at some point.23

It is interesting to note how Ibn ʿAṭāʾ seemingly did not feel hindered
by notions of ʿiṣma at all, and could make the statement that Adam,
though unintentionally, had committed idolatry. As a Ḥanbalī, it is
likely that he adhered to a non-theological, strictly text-based form
of creed that did not problematise the idea that prophets could sin.
The result of the sin, the sojourn in this-worldly life, was something
explicitly negative for Ibn ʿAṭāʾ; he argued that joyfulness only befit-
ted humankind when returned to Adam’s original abode, namely
Paradise. Therefore, in this-worldly life, grief and weeping should be
dominant.24
Other approaches to the banishment seem to have been more
influenced by fundamental theological questions, and take the form of
a mystical theodicy. They are generally more positive in approach and
tend to see the descent to this-worldly life as something that elevated
rather than degraded humankind. For example, the early, more mysti-
cally oriented, authority Sahl al-Tustarī (contrary to the more zuhd-
oriented ones) dedicated a whole chapter in his Laṭāʾif al-qiṣaṣ to
the ‘subtleties’ involved in the Adam story.25 This maintains that the
subtlety of Adam’s banishment from Paradise for eating wheat from
a tree – a seemingly disproportionate punishment for a minor sin
perpetrated only once – is that it effectuated the divine decree that
Adam should be vicegerent on earth, although he himself wished to
stay in Paradise. Sahl compares this with Muhammad, who preferred
to stay in Mecca but had to leave for Medina because of the harshness
he encountered in Mecca. This was necessary in order to fulfil what
was decreed by God, to grant him power and elevate his words. The
sincere servant Adam could not, as it were, help his sin; ultimately,
it was God who wanted him to do it, to fulfil a certain aspect of His
divine decree. It was in this way that God granted the possibility of
repentance, forgave him and granted mercy. Also, unlike Satan, Adam
did not believe in the sin that he had committed and recognised his
mistake. Another reason that Sahl mentions for Adam’s banishment is

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that he had to leave because he was also the progenitor of unbeliev-

ers, and unbelievers cannot be in Paradise.26
The polymath Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), in his chap-
ter on Maʿrifat-i dunyā (Knowledge of this World) from his Kīmiyā-yi
saʿādat, describes the banishment of humankind in general to this-
worldly life as a positive event, something that enriched humankind.
By descending to earth humankind could come to true self-­knowledge,
knowledge of creation and thus of God. Moreover, by going through
this-worldly life, humankind receives the extra reward that God has
promised.27 We find a more elaborate mystical-theological expression
of this same idea in a treatise on the names of God by a contemporary
of Maybudī, the Marv-based Persian Shāfiʿī author Aḥmad al-Samʿānī
(d. 534/1140). In his work, the Rawḥ al-arwāḥ fī sharḥ asmāʾ al-malik
al-fattāḥ, he discusses Adam’s banishment in his explanation of God’s
mercy. He argues that God created Adam to know God. Adam’s ban-
ishment was necessary to come to a full understanding of the names
of God. While Paradise is ruled by the names of mercy and gentleness,
Hell is governed by the names of wrath and severity. In this-worldly
life, both names are manifest. In Paradise, Adam experienced only
God’s beauty and mercy. By the banishment, Adam attained knowl-
edge of the attributes of ‘majesty’ and ‘wrath’ as well, and thus attained
a fuller understanding of God.28 Al-Samʿānī stresses the importance of
love and mercy; Adam was created to love God and to be loved. Love
can only exist by coming together (with God), but also demands sepa-
ration, testing and trial. By experiencing God’s wrath in these forms,
the love of humankind for God becomes stronger. Adam ate from the
tree because he knew that would be the way for him to strengthen his
love for God through separation and tribulation.29

Loss of Nearness and Vision: The Tafsīr of al-Sulamī

In Chapter 3 we came across the dominance of the vision of and

nearness to God in Sufi eschatology. This theme also dominates in
al-Sulamī’s commentary of the verses on Adam’s banishment from
Paradise. Several authorities quoted by al-Sulamī hold the idea that
the banishment of Adam was a punishment for looking at the tree

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instead of at God during his stay in Paradise. The punishment then

consists of being deprived of the vision of God during this-worldly
existence, only to be restored in the hereafter. When Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq is
quoted on Adam’s banishment from Paradise, the themes of nearness,
vision and a God-centred motivation again appear; God had ordered
Adam to be occupied only with Him and not to forget Him in any state.
Adam broke this covenant, states Jaʿfar, by preoccupying himself with
the bliss of the Garden instead of with the Benefactor. God expelled
Adam from the Garden ‘so that he would know that the bliss (naʿīm)
lies in being close to the Benefactor, not in the enjoyment of eating
and drinking’.30 The banishment from Paradise is only temporary,
until the Day of Judgement, because Adam viewed Paradise and its
bliss with ‘only’ the eye, but still kept his heart occupied with God:

Had he looked at it with his heart, a complete abandonment would

have been proclaimed against him for all eternity. But then God had
compassion on him and was merciful to him, (as seen) in His words:
{then his Lord chose him and relented towards him and guided
(him)} (20:122).31

In the commentary on Q 7:23 (‘Our Lord, we have wronged our-

selves’), a certain al-Ḥusayn32 defines ẓulm (wrong-doing) as being
distracted from God by something other than Him. Ibn ʿAṭāʾ states
they have wronged themselves by being distracted from Him by the
Garden.33 In addition, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Qurashī stresses that the
result of eating from the tree is estrangement from God; what is lost
is nearness (qurb). While God first addresses Adam in plain speech
(qawl; Q 2:35), when he tells him to enter the Garden, a sign of near-
ness, this changes to summoning (nidāʾ; Q 7:22) him to leave after
eating from the tree, a sign of distance.34
Al-Sulamī’s commentary contains two specific quotes that can
be read as early instances of reconciling the ʿiṣma doctrine with the
Qurʾanic suggestion that Adam committed a sin. These quotes both
represent a different strategy. One strategy is to argue that what
appears to be a sin is actually something that elevated Adam’s status.
Al-Sulamī quotes al-Dārāni in the commentary on Q 7:20 (‘So Satan

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whispered to them’). Although he whispered to them because he

wanted evil for them, it had the opposite effect of causing the elevation
of Adam and his reaching the highest rank. The sin (khaṭīʾa) of Adam
was the most complete action he ever did, because it disciplined him
and placed him on the station of realities (maqām al-ḥaqāʾiq). Al-Shiblī
offers a similar idea, that when prophets commit a sin (dhanb) it leads
them to honour and an elevated rank. The sin of Adam led him to
electedness (ijtibāʾ) and chosenness (iṣṭifāʾ). The other strategy is to
argue that it was not a sin at all, rather a misunderstanding. On the
verse ‘And do not come near this tree’ (Q 7:19), al-Sulamī quotes an
anonymous source to have said that Adam thought the command to
be for the specific tree that God pointed to, while God actually meant
the entire species. He mistakenly approached a different tree from the
same species. The repentance, then, was not for a violation of God’s
command, but for lack of caution.35
Al-Sulamī has more sayings to offer, mostly on the prostration
of the angels and the stubbornness and arrogance of Satan in the
narrative. He quotes Abū Ḥafṣ (al-Ḥaddād, d. 265/878–9) to have
said that the command to the angels to prostrate before Adam was a
way for God to teach the angels that He is completely independent of
their worship of Him. Had their worship added but a grain’s weight
to His might, he would not have commanded them to turn to Adam.
In the commentary on Q 7:11, Abū Ḥafṣ stresses that the prostration
of the angels and all of creation does not add anything to the might of
God, ‘because He is Almighty before He created them, Almighty after
He makes them vanish, and Almighty when He resurrects them’.36
An anonymous quote makes clear that the prostration before Adam
was an act of obedience to God for the angels, and a mere greeting
to Adam.37 Several authorities quoted by al-Sulamī take issue with
Satan using the pronoun ‘I’ (anā khayrun minhu; Q 7:12).38 The reason
for the curse of Satan is the use of this pronoun; even if he had left
away khayrun minhu and only said anā, it would still have ruined him.
Subsequently, it is said that he was cursed for not admitting his sin to
himself, not repenting, not blaming himself, not considering repent-
ance necessary, and despairing of God’s mercy. Satan thus becomes a

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negative example prominent in Sufi literature for the danger of put-

ting oneself at the centre of things, giving any value to one’s ego and
being too proud to recognise one’s sins and repent. Adam, on the
other hand, is a positive example of proper behaviour towards God
for the Sufi: he admits his sin to himself, regrets it, considers repent-
ance necessary, blames himself and does not despair of God’s mercy.39
Adam is for these reasons considered different from Iblīs, although
they both transgressed against God’s command.40

Teaching Good Manners: The Banishment in al-Qushayrī

Al-Qushayrī does not show himself to be a man of grand narratives

and themes in his treatment of the story of Adam. His commentary
being intended as a mode of instruction for his direct pupils, he mainly
takes the verses on Adam as a reason to speak about aspects of good
manners (adab) and controlling one’s desires. A primary motive that
al-Qushayrī mentions for the banishment of Satan is a lack of good
manners (sūʾ al-adab) in his nearness to God.41 His arrogance and
haughtiness while being on the carpet of nearness (bisāṭ al-qurb)
necessitated his removal from Paradise. Arrogance is a challenge to
God’s Lordship (rubūbiyya) by claiming a similar place for oneself.42
This goes for Adam as well. He was in the spring of nearness (ʿayn
al-qurba) when he showed improper manners, which necessitated his
banishment.43
In a similar vein, Adam’s eating from the tree mainly helps
al-Qushayrī to teach something about humankind’s inclination
towards sin. Although everything in the Garden was generally
allowed for Adam, he did not stretch out his hand to it, and instead
patiently waited for the one tree that was forbidden to him. Such,
claims al-Qushayrī, is the nature of humankind.44 However, despite
this inclination to sin, humanity is still more elevated in rank than
the angels, he holds. Although the angels are superior in acts of obe-
dience, humans are superior in knowledge, and knowledge is more
elevated than actions.45 When Adam wanted to eat from the tree in
order to become like the angels (Q 7:20) it was not because he envied
a supposed higher position of the angels, but because Adam wanted

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to be without desires like the angels. The desire to be immortal like

the angels was a mistake that caused fear, trial and degeneration,
because the cause of every tribulation is desire. Al-Qushayrī takes this
example as a mode of instruction. If even in the everlasting abode (dār
al-khulūd) desire causes so much trouble, then one must certainly
protect oneself from desire in the ephemeral abode (dār al-fanāʾ).46
Al-Qushayrī is also concerned with the preordained nature of
Adam’s act. The banishment of Adam was a necessity to make him
a vicegerent (khalīfa) on earth, as God had announced to the angels
(Q 2:30).47 Although it was Satan who enticed Adam and Eve to slip up,
it was in reality God’s omnipotence (qudra) that caused it.48 When God
made Adam enter the Garden, He also decreed that the tree of tribula-
tion would be there. Had the decree not already preceded the act of
Adam, he argues, the tree would have lost its bloom and greenness,
and Adam could not have reached the leaves. Had the divine decree
been such that the tree had grown longer, to the extent that his hands
could not have reached it, all the difficulties that befell them would not
have happened. What Adam did was bound to happen because God
had decreed it, and even his firm will could not do anything against it:
‘And no firm will was stronger than his firm will, but the omnipotence
(qudra) [of God] cannot be surpassed, and the decree (ḥukm) cannot
be opposed.’49
Al-Qushayrī also has the tendency to belittle Adam’s sin. The result
of the sin was not necessarily bad. Apparently God had made them
leave their elevated rank, but for God they only increased in rank and
degree.50 Iblīs was cursed after being sent down and did not recover
from his degradation, while Adam was granted mercy and kept his
elevated rank.51 Al-Qushayrī is the first (and only) author until now
to explicitly mention Adam’s spouse as the cause for the tribulation
( fitna). However, he does not specify in what way this was so.52
It is interesting to note that these particular passages from
al-Qushayrī hardly incorporate the material cited by al-Sulamī.53 Some
anonymous authorities are quoted, but this material is from another
unclear source. Why he did not include the sayings from al-Sulamī’s
commentary when these were available to him, we can only speculate.

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It might be that these sayings went too far beyond the boundaries of
the apparent meaning of the Qurʾanic text for al-Qushayrī, and that he
was not as fond of the themes of nearness and vision that dominate
al-Sulamī’s material.

Elevation through Degradation: The Banishment in Maybudī

Maybudī is the first commentator who, besides quoting earlier

authorities, offers his own quite rich and varied material on Adam. The
banishment of Adam as perceived by Maybudī is very similar to his
contemporary al-Samʿāni.54 According to Annabel Keeler, for Maybudī
the significance of the creation and banishment of Adam primarily lies
in love and experiential knowledge (maʿrifa). This argument entails
the same inevitability of God’s decree that we witnessed earlier in the
work of Sahl al-Tustarī: Adam had to sin and leave Paradise so that
the love and mercy of God could fully manifest, and Adam could fully
bring about the love of God for which he was destined. The suffering
of Adam in this-worldly life was necessary to attain love; without
suffering, true love is not possible. Suffering the pain of love is a way
to reach chivalry ( jawānmardī). Moreover, it is a way for humankind
to realise its own weakness and dependence on God.55
This theme of love and mercy dominates Maybudī’s discussion of
the creation of Adam. While God created Heaven, Earth and inanimate
beings to manifest His power, the angels and jinn to instil awe, He
created Adam and humankind (the Adamites) to manifest His forgive-
ness and mercy. This is the big difference between the angels and
humankind. While the angels are capable of only obedience, praising
and hallowing, Adam brings something extra: the capability of love,
affection and companionship.56 Where the themes of passionate love
(ʿishq), passionate longing (shawq) and friendship (dūstī) show up,
the theme of the vision of God is never far away.57 For Maybudī, in
pre-eternity on the Day of the Covenant (rūz-i alast) the seed of this
love was sown, by the vision of God. As Keeler states:

It was the moment when humanity was able to see God as well as
hearing Him and, since vision is the mainspring of love, it was the

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moment when the seed of human love for God was sown . . . In this
world, the spiritual vocation of the human being can be understood
as the fulfilment of the pact agreed in pre-eternity with God; it is to
return to that state of being with Him, cut off from all other.58

Maybudī shows a positive attitude towards the banishment of

Adam and this-worldly life, and sees it as an event that completed
and elevated Adam, rather than degraded him. He quotes a ques-
tion posed to ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī (consequently addressed as pīr-i
ṭarīqat), whether Adam was more complete in Paradise or in this
world. Al-Anṣārī’s answer is that Adam was more complete in this
world, because there he was confronted with passionate love (ʿishq).
One should not, Maybudī quotes his teacher al-Anṣārī, make the mis-
take to think that the banishment of Adam from Paradise was because
of his lowliness. On the contrary, it was because of his high aspiration
(ʿulū-y himmat). Although Maybudī does not state it so explicitly, it is
my impression from the context of the statement that he considered
this ‘high aspiration’ to be Adam’s quest to fulfil his passionate love
for God through seeing the beauty of God. In Paradise, so the quote
continues, the creditor of passionate love (mutaqāḍī-y ʿishq) came
to Adam and rhetorically told him: ‘The beauty of meaning ( jamāl-i
maʿnā) has been unveiled, and you stay in the bliss of the abode of
peace?’59 An infinite beauty was then unveiled to Adam that Maybudī
describes as more beautiful than the eight paradises and all that is
in them. Although this beauty is not specified, this is most probably
an allusion to the unveiling of the beauty of God: a beatific vision
that evokes a passionate longing. After that, the command came to
leave Paradise. Paradise is the abode of peace (dār al-salām) and
thus not a suitable place for a passionate lover; passion is in need
of tribulation.60 This is the reverse of the motive that we witnessed
in al-Sulamī’s tafsīr. Where the likes of Jaʿfar and Ibn ʿAṭāʾ seek the
reason for the banishment in turning away from the vision of God
towards the created, for Maybudī it was exactly the vision of God’s
beauty that necessitated the banishment.
When one shows friendship in this-worldly life, says Maybudī

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with the words of al-Anṣārī, one will be rewarded with the vision in
the hereafter: ‘The drinker of the wine of friendship (sharāb-i dūstī)
is promised the vision (dīdār). Whoever is truthful, attains what he
wishes.’61 Maybudī considers the vision of God in the hereafter to be
the ultimate outcome of Adam’s sojourn in this-worldly life. While in
this world, humankind can compensate for the lack of this vision by
remembrance (dhikr) of God:

His impudence and nearness reached the point that, when He com-
manded him to travel from Paradise to the earth, he said, ‘O Lord,
travellers do not go without provision. What will You give us on this
path as our provision?’ He said, ‘O Adam, your provision in that land
of exile will be the remembrance of Me. After that, on that day of
your return, your vision of Me is promised.62

This confirms Keeler’s view that the main interpretation of

Adam’s banishment is rooted in love mysticism; Adam becomes a
more complete human by his sojourn in this-worldly life, because its
tribulations lead to a more complete love from and for God and, ulti-
mately, a return to the vision of His beauty that first engendered this
passionate love and longing.63 The lack of vision in this-worldly life is
not a punishment or deprivation. Rather it is something that makes
Adam a more complete human, due to the suffering and longing that
it causes.
Maybudī distinguishes between two existences of Adam (Ādam-rā
dū wujūd būd): first the Adam of this world and, second, the Adam of
Paradise. Adam is banished from Paradise, only to return in victory:
‘Suffer a bit of trouble, then in a few days take the treasure.’64 When
Adam was commanded to leave Paradise and go into this world, he
had to leave behind his honorary possessions to travel the ‘road of
passionate love’ (rāh-i ʿishq). However, upon his return he would have
much more honour. The angels would stand in awe of him and remem-
ber how he left, and how much more honoured he returned. Maybudī,
like Sahl al-Tustarī, likens Adam’s banishment from Paradise to the
forced migration of Muhammad to Medina. He fled alone and abased,
but returned victoriously to Mecca with a complete army.65 In sum,

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this-worldly life is an enriching experience. It is something human-

kind has to go through to return to God in a better state.

The Banishment in al-Daylamī

In al-Daylamī’s commentary, there is not a very prominent place for

Adam. The crucial passages in al-Baqara (Q 2:30–8), al-Aʿrāf (Q 7:11–
25) and Ṭāhā (Q 20:115–23) hardly provoke reaction or reflection in
his commentary. Al-Daylamī does not bother to give explanations for
the deeper reasons for the creation of Adam, the significance of his
sin or his banishment. He mainly highlights the idea that God is not in
need of the prostration of anything to Him, and that the prostration of
creatures serves only their own interests. The angels are commanded
to prostrate before Adam because he is created in the image of God.66
Satan’s refusal to prostrate stems from his wrong understanding
of dignity; he thinks dignity is something fundamental that simply
belongs to him, not something related to God-wariness (taqwā) as the
Qurʾan teaches (Q 49:13). Al-Daylamī also deems it important to point
out that the prostration of the angels took place after the formation
of all of Adam’s offspring in his loins, and their testimony that God is
indeed their Lord (Q 7:172).67

The Banishment in Rūzbihān

Rūzbihān is a challenging author to deal with. The difficulty of his

writings is widely recognised, and may be one of the reasons why
he never really earned a well-established place within the later Sufi
tradition.68 At first glance, his ideas appear articulated intuitively and
not always consistently. Of all the authors under scrutiny, Rūzbihān
has the most to say on Adam and will thus be treated a bit more exten-
sively. In what follows, I have tried to reconstruct several snippets
from his commentary into a more or less chronological narrative of
the story of Adam, from his creation to the banishment from Paradise.

The Creation of Adam and the Conference of the Angels

Rūzbihān mentions several motivations God might have had

for the creation of Adam. Most of them contain aspects of both

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a­ nthropology and angelology. These narratives serve to define the

unique characteristics of man and angels and the hierarchy between
them, mainly through the themes of experiential knowledge (maʿrifa),
love and vision. First, Rūzbihān states, the angels worshipped God
ignorantly. Through their worship alone they were not capable of
coming to true experiential knowledge of God. Being turned away by
God ‘from the gate of Lordship (bāb al-rubūbiyya) by . . . the attacks
of [His] might (saṭwāt al-ʿizza) upon them’, they were incapable
of grasping divine reality (idrāk al-ḥaqīqa), and understanding of
Lordship was unattainable for them. He thus brought them Adam so
that they could acquire knowledge through him, as well as to teach
them good manners in servitude. The angels may have preceded
Adam in worship, he states, but Adam was their master in experi-
ential knowledge, since his knowledge was imparted directly from
God (al-ʿulūm al-laduniyya).69 This implies a unique characteristic
of humankind that makes them superior to the angels: the capabil-
ity to obtain experiential knowledge of God’s Lordship. God has
given knowledge of the divine attributes only to humans: ‘He blew
a spirit into his spirit, which is the knowledge of the attributes . . .
Through these attributes he has precedence over the noble, dutiful
angels.’70
Second, at the conference of the angels, God noticed that the
angels did not love Him properly, focused as they were on worship-
ping Him. While God created angels for the sake of worship, He cre-
ated Adam for the sake of love.71 This love was mutual; God wanted
a beautiful witness (shāhid jamīl) in the world that He Himself could
love. He therefore created Adam with His hand and ‘clothed’ him with
one of His attributes. He loved him by His attributes for the sake of
His attributes.72 This obscure formulation might be explained with
some help from Rūzbihān’s treatise on love, the ʿAbhar al-ʿāshiqīn.
In it Rūzbihān equates God with love and states that passionate love
(ʿishq) is an attribute of His.73 So when a human feels love for God,
this is because God has ‘clothed’ this human with His attribute of
love. Thus, the attribute in which God clothed Adam could well be the
attribute of love.

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Third, the angels desired to see God. Therefore, God gave them
Adam so that they would be able to see Him through him:

God knew their incapability of looking at Him, so He made Adam for

them to look at him, because God created him with His hand, and
formed him with His form, and put a reflection of His spirit in him.74
When they looked into it, God manifested Himself to them.75

Like Maybudī, Rūzbihān intertwines the theme of passionate love and

longing with the theme of the vision of God. Carl Ernst has pointed out
how Rūzbihān in ʿAbhar al-ʿāshiqīn connects the witnessing and vision
of God with different stages of love. On one of the stages, the lover is
transformed into a mirror of God. When one looks at a lover, one sees
God reflected in him and becomes a lover oneself.76 This concept also
appears in Rūzbihān’s commentary. When the angels prostrated to
Adam, he states, some of the angels reached the station of love and
passionate love (maqām al-maḥabba wa’l-ʿishq), as a consequence of
which God manifested Himself to them through His reflection in the
face of Adam.77 The human face, in this case Adam’s, became a mirror
of God.78 The indirectness of this manifestation was a necessity,
because created beings are not capable of having a pure and unmedi-
ated vision of God: ‘Had the lights of His attributes and His essence
been exposed to them unadulterated (ṣirfan), they would burn in the
first bit that appears from the light of Godliness (ulūhiyya).’79
By this vision of Him through Adam, God also intended to teach
the angels a lesson in humility. Rūzbihān points out that when God
created Adam the angels had a bad opinion of him and showed poor
manners towards him, while they praised themselves.80 Despite God
calling him vicegerent (khalīfa), which according to Rūzbihān meant
that he would not deal unjustly nor deviate, they still assumed that
he would shed blood and misbehave. Rūzbihān interprets this as an
act of disobedience against God by the angels. When God removed
the ‘veil of sanctity’ (niqāb al-quds) from the face of Adam and the
light of his beauty spread, the angels became ashamed of their alle-
gations, realised their ignorance and proclaimed: ‘Glory to You, we
have no knowledge except for what You have taught us’ (Q 2:32).81

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God clothed the angels in the cloth of worship (libās al-ʿubūdiyya),

while Adam was clothed in the cloth of vision (libās al-ruʾya). God
thus showed him to the angels ‘so they saw him clothed in the
cloth of God’, and became embarrassed with how astonished they
were over their own deficient worship. The command to prostrate
to Adam was a lesson that their worship does not reach the level of
understanding of Lordship (rubūbiyya). The angels saw the secret
(sirr) of God in Adam, and saw that the ‘cloth’ of God was upon
him, and that he was dyed with the ‘colour’ of God.82 Iblīs did not
prostrate because he did not see what was unveiled to them.83 He
was veiled from God’s beauty ( jamāl) and majesty ( jalāl) because
he was looking only to himself. He did not belong to the ‘people of
witnessing of the attributes (ahl shuhūd al-ṣifāt) and seeing of the
majesty of the essence (ruʾyat jalāl al-dhāt)’.84 He claimed not to
prostrate because he did not want to look at anything but God. He
failed to realise that Adam at that moment was like the Kaʿba. Just as
prostrating to the Kaʿba, a created object, in reality is a prostration
to God, prostrating to Adam is just a symbolic means to prostrate to
God. Because of his refusal to follow God’s command, his prostration
was in reality to himself.85

The Dwelling in Paradise and the ‘Slip-up’

Rūzbihān states that before Adam existed, even before anything

existed, God had already decreed that Adam was chosen and elected
(muṣṭafā mujtabā) for prophethood, for knowledge of God’s names
and for experiential knowledge of God through these names. It was
by these names that Adam would be led to His characteristic (naʿt),
through His characteristic to His attribute (ṣifa) and through His
attribute to the ultimate vision of His essence (ruʾyat dhātihi).86 This
aspect of Adam being chosen (iṣṭifāʾiyya) appears to be crucial in one
of the narratives of the banishment that Rūzbihān offers: leaving
Paradise was a necessity to fulfil exactly this aspect of Adam being
chosen for these things in pre-eternity.
In Rūzbihān’s commentaries there are two banishments of Adam:
the first is a banishment from the nearness of God to Paradise, the

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second from Paradise to this world. The command from God to Adam
and his spouse to live in the Garden (Q 2:35) Rūzbihān first interprets
as being in proximity ( jiwār) to God, so that they would not be sepa-
rated from Him. Only a few lines after that, he seemingly contradicts
this earlier interpretation by suggesting that dwelling in the Garden
was not in proximity ( jiwār) to God; that is, before they were placed
in the Garden, they were in proximity to God. By placing them in the
Garden, God removed them from proximity to Him. He states that
God actually wanted Adam and his spouse to sin, without specify-
ing why, or of what exactly the sin consisted. He therefore put them
in charge of themselves (wakkalahumā ilā anfusihimā) and removed
them from His proximity ( jiwār) by placing them in the Garden, so
that the sin could take place. God wanted to set apart the eternal
(qadīm) from the created (ḥadthān), and therefore made them take
their refuge in eating from the fruits of the trees of Paradise. Since
Adam and his spouse were ‘children of time’ (ṭiflā al-zamān) – that is,
part of the created realm and not divine – they were not entitled to
reside in the realm of might of the Merciful ( jabarūt al-raḥmān).87 He
quotes an earlier authority to support this idea: ‘Living in the Garden
is estrangement from God. He brought the created back to the created,
and He brought imperfection back to imperfection, to separate the
pre-eternal (azal) from the created (ḥawādith).’88
Before entering the Garden, Adam was afraid in his inmost self
(sirr) that he would be distracted from the delights of witnessing God
(ladhāʾidh mushāhadatihi) and communion (wiṣāl) with God, and
be veiled from the spirit of intimacy (rūḥ al-uns) and from looking
at the beauty of sanctity ( jamāl al-quds). God, therefore, comforted
him by stating that ‘you shall not be hungry therein, and not naked’
(Q 20:118). Rūzbihān interprets this to mean that Adam would not be
hungry in the sense of longing to witness God (mushāhada), because
in the Garden he also would ‘drown in the sea of communion with Us’,
and that he would not be naked from ‘the cloth of the light of elected-
ness’ (libās anwār al-iṣṭifāʾiyya). God promises Adam that he would be
forever clothed in the cloth of ‘chosenness’ (kiswat al-ijtibāʾiyya), that
he would not be thirsty of the water of nearness (zulfa), that he would

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be in communion (waṣla) and would not become burned by the heat

of the sun of separation ( firāq).89
Rūzbihān offers several explanations for the special significance
of the tree, the reason for the prohibition of the tree to Adam and
his attraction to it. More than once he states that God hid the secrets
of Lordship (asrār al-rubūbiyya) in the tree. He forbade Adam and
Eve from approaching it, so that they would not be banished from
Paradise and in consequence burdened with ordinary human life
(ʿaysh al-insāniyya).90 This prohibition had the opposite effect of
exciting them, so they approached it. When they approached it, God
clothed the tree with the lights of sanctity (anwār al-quds) and He
manifested Himself to them through the tree. This manifestation
caused them to fall into passionate love (ʿishq) with the tree, which
made them completely forget the prohibition to approach it.91 God
clothed the forbidden tree with the lights of His splendour (bahāʾ) and
made Adam see that lordly light and splendour. He commanded him
to avoid the tree, while placing love of being near to it in his heart as
well, by manifesting the reflection of His majesty ( jalāl) through it to
Adam. This love of being near to it won over the command to avoid
it, and Adam ‘fell into the excitement of longing for it and the hazard
of the delight of the splendour of witnessing it’.92 It had now become
easy for Satan to deceive them, because they were passionate lovers.
In his longing for the face of his passionately beloved (maʿshūq), says
Rūzbihān, a passionate lover (ʿāshiq) is willing to listen to ‘the speech
of every pious and insolent so that they perhaps come somewhat
close to their beloved’.93
When they ate from the tree, they learned the knowledge of ‘the
inmost of the inmost secrets’ (sirr al-asrār) and ‘the subtlety of the
divine decrees’ (laṭīf al-aqdār). As a consequence, the Garden filled up
with the heaviness of the lights of the inmost secrets (anwār al-asrār)
and the gravity of the strength of Lordship (rubūbiyya). They were
considered transgressors (Q 2:35) because they acquired knowledge
of the inmost secrets of Godliness (asrār al-ulūhiyya). He quotes ‘one
of the immoderates’ (musrifīn) to have said:

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That tree is the tree of knowledge of fate (qaḍāʾ) and divine decree
(qadr). Who has knowledge [of that] has knowledge of what God
has hidden in it, [and] has arrived at the might of the kingdom (ʿizz
al-mulk) and of immortality (khuld) by the description of Lordship
(naʿt al-rubūbiyya) and independence (ḥurriyya).94

When ‘the cursed one’ (al-malʿūn) said to Adam and Eve ‘Shall
I point you to the tree of immortality and a power that does not
vanish?’ (Q 20:120), Satan was well aware that it was indeed the tree
of immortality and power (shajarat al-khuld wa’l-mulk) and that it
was forbidden to them. However, he wanted the tree to be touched,
to challenge Lordship (rubūbiyya) by its strength. He grieved because
he himself did not have the ability to do so, and saw the treasures of
the unseen being filled in it in the form of fruits. Therefore, he pointed
Adam to it, so that at least someone of the created beings would enjoy
this. But he mixed his will (irāda) with envy of Adam. Satan wanted
them to be shown those secrets (asrār) that would make the one who
knew them naked and intoxicated.95
Ultimately, it was God who wanted part of His secrets to be shown
to Adam. He thus gave Iblīs the ability to whisper to Adam, which
caused this secret to be unveiled to him. Adam’s rank was elevated
by his newly gained knowledge, while Iblīs was damaged by it.
Thus Iblīs did not obtain what he wanted; he had wished for Adam
to fall from his rank, but instead Adam’s rank was elevated and his
honour was increased. He himself lost his rank because of his envy
of Adam and became forever rejected (maṭrūd al-abad), whereas
Adam became forever accepted (maqbūl al-azal wa’l-abad).96 When
Satan tempted Adam to eat from the tree, he thought that he had put
Adam in ‘the haughtiness of eternal separation’ (al-firqa al-abadiyya).
He did not realise that Adam’s act would cause the exact opposite,
eternal communion (al-waṣla al-abadiyya), and that in reality the
tree was the tree of eternity (shajarat al-khuld), because the tree was
clothed in the lights of power (anwār al-sulṭāniyya) and the secrets
of divinity (asrār al-rabbāniyya).97 For the idea that Adam was actu-
ally elevated by eating from the tree, Rūzbihān finds support in the

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earlier ­authority of Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī (d. 215/830), whom he

quotes:

Satan whispered to them because he wanted evil for them. That was
the cause of Adam’s elevation and his reaching the highest rank.
Adam had never done an act more complete than the sin (khaṭīʾa)
which disciplined him and positioned him on the station of realities
(maqām al-ḥaqāʾiq). What might have pervaded his inmost self (sirr)
from the angels’ prostration to him fell away from him, and made
him return to the blessing of the beginning, in being created by the
hand, until he returned to his Lord, by His saying: {We have wronged
ourselves}.98

In the Qurʾan it is stated that when Adam and his spouse both ate from
the tree, their private parts became apparent to them (Q 20:121).
According to Rūzbihān, this means that their inmost selves (asrār)
were unveiled to them after eating from the tree, which made them
obtain the divine secrets (al-asrār al-ulūhiyya). It was Satan, aiming
for the opposite, who guided them to this elevated state. To elucidate
this, Rūzbihān gives the comparison of a snake that walks towards a
treasure. Behind him is a human who tries to kill it. When he kills the
snake, he finds the treasure, thus reaching success through his enemy.
This, says Rūzbihān, is similar to the case of Adam and ‘the cursed
one’ (al-malʿūn; Satan):

He guided him to one of the treasures of Lordship (rubūbiyya), his

target was enmity and deviation, and Adam attained post-eternal
chosenness (al-ijtibāʾiyya al-abadiyya) after pre-eternal electedness
(al-iṣṭifāʾiyya al-azaliyya), while the cursed one reached pre- and
post-eternal cursedness (al-laʿna al-azaliyya al-abadiyya).99

Rūzbihān explicitly links God’s manifestation through the tree to

Adam to another story of divine manifestation to a prophet through
a tree: the manifestation to Moses through a burning bush. In one
instance, when he mentions the manifestation to Adam and Eve, he
explicitly makes this comparison: ‘And God manifested Himself to
them from the tree, as He manifested Himself from the tree of Moses

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to Moses.’100 He criticises people who differentiate between both

trees for the wrong reasons. Some, he complains, would state that at
the tree of Adam a test and tribulation occurred, while at the tree of
Moses the way was opened for his messengership and prophethood.
Rūzbihān holds that one would never make such a statement if one
knew the true reality (ḥaqīqa) of the tree of Adam. The tree, he states,
is an allusion to the tree of Lordship (rubūbiyya), and therefore it was
forbidden to Adam. When Adam discovered the attributes of God, he
wanted a sample of their reality. God denied him this though, saying:
‘This is something that is not for you. It is forbidden for the created
(ḥadathiyya).’ His pre-eternity (azaliyya) became apparent from the
tree, which intoxicated Adam and tempted him to eat from it. He ate
the grain of Lordship (rubūbiyya), which made his state (ḥāl) in the
presence (ḥaḍra) of God so enormous that the Garden did not have
the capacity to contain him. Therefore, he was sent down from it
to this world, the ‘treasure-trove of the passionate lovers’ (maʿdin
al-ʿushshāq).101

The Exile from Paradise and the Sojourn in This-worldly Life

Rūzbihān states that the ‘provision for a time’ promised to Adam and
his spouse in this world in Q 2:36 has the meaning of ‘the lights of the
manifestation of God (anwār tajallī al-ḥaqq) thronging to their hearts,
to comfort them for the lack of witnessing ( fuqdān al-mushāhada)’.102
By abandoning Paradise, they lost their witnessing of God. As a com-
pensation for that loss, they would receive some of the light from
the manifestation (tajallī) of God upon their hearts in this-worldly
existence.103
In his commentary on Q 20:117 (‘Let him [Satan] not remove you
from the Garden so that you suffer’), God says that His reprimand
comprises hunger, thirst and nakedness, because that is what the
lower self (nafs) truly fears. If they eat from the tree, God will tire
them in this-worldly life by the need to look after food, drink, clothing,
agriculture and so on, while ‘these punishments do not exist close
and near to Me’.104 It is a kindness and generosity from God that He
punishes Adam in this world (dunyā) for a sin that he committed in

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His presence (ḥaḍra), while his fellow human beings are punished in
the otherworld (ākhira) for the sins they commit in this world. This
is something specifically for Adam, because the punishment in this
world is easier. It is only because God tested Adam with eating from
the tree that the secrets of the realities of His subjugation (ḥaqāʾiq
qahramānihi) are attainable for the people of experiential knowledge
(ahl al-maʿārif) from among the trustworthy (ṣiddīqīn).105

Concluding Rūzbihān

So what is the point that Rūzbihān wants to make regarding Adam’s

banishment? It is hard to find a structured argument or an over-
arching theme in his seemingly loose and spontaneous statements.
Although vision is not the overarching theme in Rūzbihān’s narrative
of the banishment, it is a theme that is constantly present in the
background, linked with the more strongly present themes of love
and experiential knowledge. It seems that Rūzbihān, unlike Maybudī
and Samʿānī, is not preoccupied with the deeper questions of theol-
ogy and theodicy attached to the banishment of Adam. Although he
does state that God wanted Adam to sin, and that Adam’s banishment
was a way to fulfil his electedness (iṣtifāʾiyya), he does not really
specify why the banishment from Paradise was a prerequisite for its
fulfilment.
Rūzbihān mostly presents his own independent thought in these
passages on Adam. Material from al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī is quoted
from time to time, but does not play a significant role in the ideas that
he himself poses. He mainly quotes them after having given his own
interpretation, as is his habit in most of his work.106

Conclusion

Let us now return to the two central questions that we posed in our
introduction. Have we found in our authors an answer to the question
of why Adam ‘had’ to descend from Paradise, in how they placed this
descent within God’s larger (eschatological) plan for humankind and
how they dealt with the questions of the predestination and theodicy
related to it? And what did our authors exactly hold to have been

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lost by the banishment? What constitutes the yearning for Paradise

during this-worldly life?
It is somewhat surprising to see the large diversity in approaches
to the Adam story, and the seeming lack of intertextuality and geneal-
ogy between the different commentaries. Although they surely are
genealogical in the sense that they all subtly refer back to predeces-
sors and interweave them into their own impressions, they all develop
their own thoughts independently from each other. There seemed to
be enough space for their own creativity in describing their individual
perspectives on the meaning of the Qurʾan. Maybudī and Rūzbihān
have some themes in common, most notably the themes of love and
vision, but there is no clear textual lineage between the two and there
is no hint at all that Rūzbihān felt the need to relate to (or even had
knowledge of) Maybudī’s work.
The one theme that all of the commentaries in one way or
another (had to) deal with is the question of the predetermination
of Adam’s transgression. Here the lack of genealogy and intertex-
tuality is also striking. Although quite similar solutions are found
to the problem, later commentators hardly felt the need to quote
their predecessors on the issue. When dealing with the issue of
ʿiṣma in the commentaries (most notably, in those of al-Sulamī and
al-Qushayrī), one may even legitimately ask whether the suggested
interpretations are typically ‘Sufi’ or whether they at all reflect the
hermeneutical principles of ishārī tafsīr. Many ideas correspond
almost entirely with ideas propounded in the conventional works of
tafsīr and Islamic theology. In the case of predestination, one extra
dimension is added: where conventional explanations state only
that Adam’s sin was predestined, some Sufi explanations – most
notably Rūzbihān’s – go a step further and try to answer the ques-
tion of why God had ordained what He ordained. These issues of
impeccability and predestination clearly show that the Sufi authors
did not compose their work in a vacuum from, or in opposition to,
the theological doctrines that were current in their broader envi-
ronment. They actively endeavoured to understand how Adam’s sin
fitted within theological doctrines and sought to explain this by way

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of theology themselves, sometimes adding a small, typically Sufi,

twist to their argument.
The biggest difference in theme and style between the commen-
taries is the theme of love mysticism. This theme is practically absent
in the commentaries of al-Sulamī (with the sayings of Jaʿfar being an
exception) and al-Qushayrī. It does not play a prominent role in their
understanding of the Adam story or of the meaning and purpose of
this-worldly life. For Maybudī and Rūzbihān, on the other hand, it is
a core theme in their reading of the Adam narrative, paired with the
vision of God, the fuel of love. It is, I believe, the shift from a more
sober zuhd-oriented Sufism to a more ecstatic love mysticism that
explains the difference between these more negative and more posi-
tive approaches to the banishment of Adam.
Concerning the question of what was lost by Adam’s banish-
ment, one finds a clear answer only in the early authorities quoted
by al-Sulamī, for whom the loss was that of the vision and nearness
to God, to be restored only in the hereafter. This deprivation is a
punishment for Adam’s act, and the loss is what makes this-worldly
life unpleasant and negative. Although Maybudī shows a similar inter-
est, in this-worldly life as a deprivation of vision, one cannot consider
it a ‘loss’ in his account. Rather, this lack of vision is the cause of the
passionate longing that makes humankind unique, and gives his exist-
ence a quality that other creatures lack. By losing the vision and going
through the torment of being distant and veiled from God in this-
worldly life, humanity truly becomes human and ‘gains’ something
rather than loses.
Even if we do not agree with Eliade’s notion that the yearning
for and return to Paradise is a phenomenon shared by all religions, I
believe this concept might indeed offer a framework for understand-
ing the place of Adam’s banishment in the eschatological imagina-
tion of the Islamic love mystics, most notably Jaʿfar, Maybudī and
Rūzbihān. With the banishment of Adam, even when considered to
be an elevating rather than denigrating event, something pivotal was
indeed lost: the vision of God, and the nearness to and communion
with Him. The purpose of mystical experience in this-worldly life,

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then, is to restore this paradisiacal state. In states of ecstasy, a glimpse

of the nearness, communion and vision of Paradise can be attained, a
‘taste’ of what humanity experienced before the banishment, and will
experience again in the hereafter. This may explain the centrality of
the vision (ruʾya) and manifestation (tajallī) of God in most notably
Rūzbihān’s mystical thought, a centrality we further expand on in the
case studies of Chapters 6 and 7.
We conclude this chapter with two quotes that show how the
themes discussed in this chapter effect two other prophetic narra-
tives. The first is a passage from Rūzbihān’s ʿAbhar al-ʿāshiqīn that
hints at a similar scheme as Maybudī’s on primordial vision, loss of
vision and attempts to reattain it in this-worldly life. Rūzbihān relates
how humankind, once in their earthly existence, could only yearn
to see God. When speaking of rūz-i alast, the Day of the Covenant,
Rūzbihān states:
They asked the Real for beauty, so that gnosis would be perfect. The
Real removed the veil of might, and showed them the beauty of maj-
esty’s essence. The spirits of the prophets and saints became intoxi-
cated from the influence of hearing [the divine speech and seeing]
the beauty of majesty. They fell in love with the eternal beloved, with
no trace of temporality. From that stage, their love began to increase
with degrees of divine improvement, because when the holy spirits
entered earthly form, from their prior melancholy they all began to
say ‘Show me!’ They found the locus of delight, so that whatever they
saw in this world, they saw all as him.107

The second is a passage from al-Samʿānī’s Rawḥ al-arwāh, also men-

tioned by Maybudī. It considers the fall of Adam a necessity for the
ascension of Muhammad:
It was said to Adam, ‘Fall down!’ It was said to Muṣṭafā, ‘Ascend!’:
O Adam! Go to the earth so that the world of dust may settle down
in the awesome majesty of your sultanate. O Muḥammad! Come up
to heaven so that the summit of the spheres may be adorned by the
beauty of your contemplation. The secret here is that I said, ‘Fall
down!’ to your father so that I could say, ‘Ascend!’ to you.108

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In Chapters 6 and 7 we analyse these two other prophetic narratives

that are related to the themes of nearness to and vision of God:
Moses’s request for the vision of God and Muhammad’s ascension.
First, however, we must survey a spectrum of theoretical discus-
sions on the vision of God. This, we think, will help us to develop a
proper understanding of the modes of vision proposed in these case
studies.

Notes
1 English translation from Sands, Ṣūfi Commentaries, 70. Original quote
from Nwyia, Exégèse coranique, 178.
2 Not accidentally, some Christian theoreticians of the study of religion
and mysticism have taken the story as a paradigm for their theories.
For example, Mircea Eliade stated, based on Christian mysticism and his
observations of what he calls ‘archaic’ religion, that every religion, and
more specifically ‘primitive’ religion, has a notion of a fall, a sense that
something pivotal from a ‘time out of time’ (illud tempus) was lost at the
beginning of human history, resulting in a ‘nostalgia’ or ‘yearning for
Paradise’. One of the main purposes of mystic ecstasy, both in ‘primitive’
and ‘Judeo-Christian’ mysticism, then, is the return to Paradise. Mircea
Eliade, ‘The Yearning for Paradise in Primitive Tradition’, Daedalus 88,
no. 2 (1959): 264–6; Daniel P. Pals, Seven Theories of Religion (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1996), 168. More theoreticians of mysticism
have shown interest in the fall of Adam as a key event for human-
ity, and as an explanatory model for mystical experience, mostly with
an implicit Christian theology. Zaehner, in a Christocentric approach
to non-Christian mysticism, uses the fall of Adam to come to a typol-
ogy of the phenomenon of mysticism itself. He holds that the doctrine
of the fall serves as an explanation for monistic mysticism, which he
defines as ‘realising the eternal oneness of one’s own soul’ and opposes
to the ‘mysticism of the love of God’ found in the monotheistic tradi-
tions. Robert C. Zaehner, At Sundry Times: An Essay in the Comparison
of Religions (London: Faber, 1958), 132; Robert C. Zaehner, Mysticism
Sacred and Profane (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), 191–2. For
a critique of Zaehner, see Ninian Smart, ‘Interpretation and Mystical
Experience,’ Religious Studies 1, no. 1 (1965): 75–87.

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3 Gustave E. von Grunebaum, ‘Observations on the Muslim Concept of

Evil’, SI 31 (1970): 117–19.
4 One could indeed argue, as has Steenbrink, that Satan is more prominent
in the Qurʾanic narrative. The question of the origin of evil, he states,
does not centre as much around Adam and Eve in the Qurʾan as it does
in the biblical narrative. Perhaps Satan, suggests Steenbrink, should be
considered the one who commits the original sin by refusing to pros-
trate to Adam. Karel Steenbrink, ‘Created Anew: Muslim Interpretations
of the Myth of Adam and Eve’, in Out of Paradise: Eve and Adam and
their Interpreters, eds Bob Becking and Susanne Hennecke (Sheffield:
Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2010), 174–5. Cf. Whitney S. Bodman, The
Poetics of Iblīs: Narrative Theology in the Qurʾān (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2011), 10–12; Adnan Aslan, ‘The Fall, Evil
and Suffering in Islam’, in Ursprung und Überwindung des Bösen und des
Leidens in den Weltreligionen, ed. Peter Koslowski (Munich: Wilhelm
Fink Verlag, 2001), 31–62; Lloyd Ridgeon, ‘A Sufi Perspective of Evil’,
Iran 36 (1998): 116–19.
5 See EQ, s.v. ‘Adam and Eve’, by C. Schöck, 1:22–6; EI2, s.v. ‘Ādam’, by
J. Pedersen, 1:176–8; EI3, s.v. ‘Adam’, by R. Tottoli; EQ, s.v. ‘Fall of Man’,
by A. H. Johns, 2:172–3. For an encompassing study of Adam in tafsīr,
hadith and qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, see Cornelia Schöck, Adam im Islam: Ein
Beitrag zur Ideengeschichte der Sunna (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag,
1993) and M. J. Kister, ‘Ādam: A Study of Some Legends in Tafsīr and
Ḥadīth Literature’, Israel Oriental Studies 13 (1993): 113–74.
6 In this paragraph, we will focus on only the Jamāʿī-Sunnī tradition,
which is most directly relevant for the Sufi interpretations under
scrutiny. Shīʿī readings are represented in Kister, ‘Ādam’. For an
account of Adam’s fall in Ismāʿīlī thought, see Bernard Lewis, ‘An
Ismaili Interpretation of the Fall of Adam’, BSOAS 9, no. 3 (1938):
691–704.
7 Schöck, Adam im Islam, 89; Josef van Ess, Zwischen Ḥadīth und Theologie.
Studien zum Entstehen prädestinatianischer Überlieferung (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 1975), 162.
8 The idea of ʿiṣma of the prophets first appeared in Muʿtazilī theology as
early as the second/eighth century, and had become the mainstream
Muʿtazilī position by the time of al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/935). In the fifth/
eleventh century, ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Baghdādī (d. 429/1037) claimed

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a consensus among Ashʿarīs that prophets were impeccable, but this

consensus seems not to have existed undisputedly. A variety of posi-
tions can be found within the school. In Ashʿarism, the main position
became that prophets were free from major sins (kabāʾir) from the
beginning of their prophetic mission, but could possibly commit minor
sins (ṣaghāʾir), while being free from unbelief before the beginning of
their prophetic mission. In the Māturīdī school, the doctrine of ʿiṣma
indeed seems to have been practically undisputed, both before and
after the prophetic mission. Traditionists were generally more reluc-
tant to accept the idea of ʿiṣma, since the idea conflicted with clear
texts according to them. See EI2, s.v. ‘ʿIṣma’, by W. Madelung; E. Tyan,
4:182–4; Schöck, Adam im Islam, 127. For an exposition of the polemic
on the issue between traditionists and Ashʿarīs in Damascus as late as
the eighth/fourteenth century, see Younus Mirza, ‘Was Ibn Kathīr the
“Spokesperson” for Ibn Taymiyya? Jonah as a Prophet of Disobedience’,
JQS 16, no. 1 (2014): 1–19.
9 Kister, ‘Ādam’, 147–52. Some interesting ideas can especially be found in
commentaries that are more theologically than philologically inclined.
For example, the prominent theologian Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d.
333/944) mentions an opinion in his Taʾwīlāt al-Qurʾān that Adam and
Eve did not properly understand why they should not approach the
tree. Fear of sickness or leaving it for someone else could have been
possibilities for God’s command not to approach it. Had they known it
was because eating from the tree was religiously prohibited (ḥarām),
they would not have touched it. Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad al-Māturīdī,
Taʾwīlāt al-Qurʾān, ed. Bekir Topaloğlu (Istanbul: Mizan Yayınevi,
2005), 1:90–1.
10 Kister, ‘Ādam’, 154–5; Schöck, Adam im Islam, 89–94. Central in Islamic
theological debates on predestination is a hadith in which Adam
responds to an accusation by Moses that it is because of his sin that
humankind is not in Paradise. Adam acquits himself from this arguing
that he should not be held accountable for something that was already
predestined before he was even created. Van Ess, Zwischen Ḥadīth und
Theologie, 161–8.
11 Schöck, Adam im Islam, 111–17.
12 Schöck, Adam im Islam, 120–1. Schöck refers to an unspecified edition
from Cairo that I was not able to locate: Abū Isḥāq Aḥmad al-Thaʿlabī,

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Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ al-musammā ʿarāʾis al-majālis (Cairo), 27–8. The edi-

tions available to me do not refer to the saying. It is thus not clear
to me whether the saying can indeed be found in al-Thaʿlabī’s work.
However, al-Thaʿlabī is known for incorporating Sufi material into
his conventional works, for example into his Qurʾan commentary. See
Saleh, Formation, 20.
13 Strictly speaking, Abū’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Ḥabīb al-Māwardī
al-Baṣrī does not belong to the Nishapuri school of exegesis as defined
by Walid Saleh. We consider it justified, however, to include him under
this label, since he resided in the environment of Nishapur for some
time and was the teacher of two sons of al-Qushayrī. Saleh, ‘Nishapuri
School’; Abū’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Ḥabīb al-Māwardī al-Baṣrī,
al-Nukat wa’l-ʿuyūn, ed. al-Sayyid b. ʿAbd al-Maqṣūd b. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm
(Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1990), 1:12.
14 Māwardī, Nukat, 1:105–6.
15 Ibid., 2:211.
16 Abū Isḥāq Aḥmad al-Thaʿlabī, al-Kashf wa’l-bayān, ed. Abū Muḥammad
b. ʿĀshūr (Beirut: Dār iḥyāʾ al-turāth al-ʿarabī, 2002), 1:177. For the
debate between Adam and Moses, see note 10 in this chapter.
17 ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Wāḥidī, al-Tafsīr al-basīṭ, ed. Muḥammad b. Ṣāliḥ
al-Fawzān (Ryadh: Jāmiʿat Muḥammad b. Saʿūd al-islāmiyya, 2009),
2:382–3.
18 ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Wāḥidī, al-Wasīṭ fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-majīd, ed. ʿĀdil
Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Mawjūd (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1994) 1:122.
19 Maybudī, Kashf, 1:152–4.
20 For a thorough study of the fall of Satan in Sufi thought, see Peter Awn,
Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption: Iblīs in Sufi Psychology (Leiden: Brill,
1983) and Bodman, Poetics of Iblīs.
21 Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb fī muʿāmalat al-maḥbūb wa-waṣf
ṭarīq al-murīd ilā maqām al-tawḥīd (Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿat al-Maymaniyya,
1893), translated by Richard Gramlich, Die Nahrung der Herzen: Abū
Ṭālib al-Makkī’s ‘Qūt al-qulūb’ (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992),
1:244; Richard Gramlich, Weltverzicht: Grundlagen und Weisen islamis-
cher Askese (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag, 1997), 109..
22 Makki, Qūt al-qulūb translated in Gramlich, Die Nahrung der Herzen,
1:244. Gramlich mentions this particular saying to a couple of sayings
that, in the spirit of asceticism (zuhd) and contemptus mundi all liken

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this world to a place of defecation (Gramlich, Weltverzicht, 109). The

idea probably has its origin in the early zuhd movement but finds, as do
so many zuhd sayings, its way into later Sufi literature.
23 ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. Aḥmad al-Shaʿrānī, al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā (Cairo:
Maṭbaʿat al-Azhar, 1925), 1:82; Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 261.
24 Gramlich, Sufi und Koranausleger, 1–5.
25 It is uncertain whether this treatise is indeed authored by Sahl
al-Tustarī. See Böwering, Mystical Vision, 16–17.
26 Sahl al-Tustarī, Laṭāʾif al-qiṣaṣ, ed. Kamāl ʿAllām (Beirut: Dār al-kutub
al-ʿilmiyya, 2004), 21–4.
27 Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, Kīmiyā-i saʿādat (Tehran: n.p., 1960), 1:72–3.
28 William C. Chittick, ‘The Myth of Adam’s Fall in Aḥmad Samʿānī’s Rawḥ
al-arwāḥ’, in The Heritage of Sufism, vol. 1: Classical Persian Sufism
from its Origins to Rumi (700–1300), ed. Leonard Lewisohn (Oxford:
Oneworld, 1999), 344–5. A similar, yet more theocentric, argument can
be found in the kalām tradition. For example, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya
reasoned that the banishment of Adam from Paradise was necessary
for all attributes of God to be effectuated. Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr b.
Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Miftāḥ dār al-saʿāda wa-manshūr wilāyat al-ʿilm
wa’l-irāda (Cairo: Dār al-ḥadīth, 1994), 12–17; Jon Hoover, ‘God’s
Wise Purposes in Creating Iblīs: Ibn Qayyim al-Ğawziyyah’s Theodicy
of God’s Names and Attributes’, in A Scholar in the Shadow: Essays in
the Legal and Theological Thought of Ibn Qayyim al-Ğawziyyah, eds
Caterina Bori and Livnat Holzman, Oriente Moderno monograph series
90, no. 1 (Rome: Istituto per l’Oriente, 2010), 114. It is very likely that
Ibn al-Qayyim elaborated on themes that were already much older in
kalām. This needs further investigation.
29 Chittick, ‘Adam’s Fall’, 348–9.
30 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:450.
31 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:450–2; Mayer, Spiritual Gems, 90.
32 It is unfortunately not clear whom al-Sulamī means by al-Ḥusayn. His
Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya does not mention anyone specifically. It could be
al-Ḥusayn b. Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj (d. 309/922), but equally al-Ḥusayn b.
al-Faḍl or al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad al-Rāzī.
33 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:224.
34 Ibid., 1:224.
35 Ibid., 1:223–5.

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36 Ibid., 1:221.
37 Ibid., 1:221.
38 This is a recurring theme in Sufi literature. See Awn, Satan’s Tragedy,
90–6.
39 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:221–2.
40 Ibid., 1:224.
41 Exegetes differ on the banishment of Satan, specifically on whether it
was from Paradise or from Heaven. The text of the Qurʾan is ambiguous
and both are mentioned in conventional tafsīr of Q 7:13. Sunnis gener-
ally consider it to be from Paradise, the Muʿtazila from Heaven. Fakhr
al-Dīn al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr al-kabīr (Beirut: Dār iḥyāʾ al-turāth al-ʿarabī,
2008), 5:210.
42 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, 1:522.
43 Ibid., 1:83.
44 Ibid., 1:80.
45 Ibid., 1:75.
46 Ibid., 1:524.
47 Ibid., 1:80. This idea can also be found in conventional commentaries
from al-Qushayrī’s milieu. Al-Thaʿlabī quotes ‘one of the wise’ (ḥukamāʾ)
to have said: ‘God had made Adam leave the Garden already before He
made him enter it, by His saying: “I shall make a vicegerent on earth.”
Then his departure from the Garden by his sin shows that it was by fate
(qaḍāʾ) and decree (qadr) of God.’ Al-Thaʿlabī, Kashf, 1:176–7.
48 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, 1:81.
49 Ibid., 1:80.
50 Ibid., 1:81.
51 Ibid., 1:527.
52 Ibid., 1:523.
53 Martin Nguyen holds that the influence of al-Sulamī on Qushayrī’s com-
mentary is overstated by Suleyman Ateş, and that he depended much
more on other contemporary non-Sufi commentaries. For a detailed
case study of al-Qushayrī’s dependence on other commentaries and
his manner of quotation, see Martin Nguyen, ‘Letter by Letter: Tracing
the Textual Genealogy of a Sufi Tafsīr’, in Aims, Methods and Contexts
of Qurʾanic Exegesis, ed. Karen Bauer (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2013), 217–40.
54 It would be worthwhile taking up the task of tracing the intertextual-

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ity between these two sources, and thus analysing the incorporation of
­non-tafsīr literature into Maybudī’s commentary. In the preface to his
latest study, Divine Love, William Chittick mentions he has investigated
the matter, but without further elaborating on the textual evidence. His
conclusion is that Maybudī knew Samʿānī’s treatise, and that it is clear
that he incorporated passages of the treatise into his commentary from
Surah 17 onwards, without citing the source. Chittick, Divine Love,
xviii–ix.
55 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 132–9.
56 Maybudī, Kashf, 3:570–1.
57 Naṣr Allāh Pūrjavādī has convincingly shown how in Sufi thought the
theme of vision is intimately connected with the themes of passionate
longing (shawq) and passionate love (ʿishq). It is the vision of God that is
passionately longed for and that is loved. Naṣr Allāh Pūrjavādī, Ruʾyat-i
māh dar āsmān: bar-rasī-yi tārīkhī-yi masʾala-i liqāʾ Allāh dar kalām wa
taṣawwuf (Tehran: Markaz-i Nashr-i Dānishgāhī, 1996), 185–8.
58 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 139.
59 Maybudī, Kashf, 1:162.
60 Ibid.
61 Ibid., 3:573.
62 Ibid., 1:163. Note the relation with Eliade’s theory of mystical experi-
ence as a recapturing of the paradisiacal state. Man is no longer in
Paradise and capable of seeing God. However, dhikr consists a substi-
tute to survive the time until the paradisiacal state of vision is restored.
Eliade, ‘Yearning for Paradise’.
63 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 136̧–7.
64 Maybudī, Kashf, 6:190.
65 Ibid., 6:190–1.
66 Al-Daylamī mentions that he treats the issue of Adam being created in
the form/image of God in detail in his work ʿUyūn al-maʿārif.
67 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, 17–18, 101.
68 Carl Ernst, who himself calls Rūzbihān’s works ‘at times admittedly
. . . convoluted and obscure’, quotes prominent figures as Jāmī (‘he has
sayings that have poured forth from him in the state of overpowering
and ecstasy, which not everyone can understand’) and Dārā Shikūh
(‘fatiguing’) to affirm this. Carl W. Ernst, ‘The Symbolism of Birds and
Flight in the Writings of Rūzbihān Baqlī’, in The Heritage of Sufism,

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vol. 2: The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism, ed. Leonard Lewisohn

(Oxford: Oneworld, 1992), 355–6.
69 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 1:40.
70 Ibid., 1:143; Kazuyo Murata, ‘God is Beautiful and He Loves Beauty:
Ruzbihan Baqli’s Sufi Metaphysics of Beauty’ (PhD dissertation, Yale
University, 2012), 158.
71 Although Rūzbihān does not quote it explicitly in this context, this
seems to draw on the motive of the ḥadīth qudsī of the ‘hidden treasure’
that figures so prominently in Sufi literature: ‘I was a hidden treasure
that was not known, so I wanted to be known. So I created the creatures
and I made Myself known to them, and thus they came to know Me.’ See
Chittick, Divine Love, 18–19.
72 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 1:40.
73 Rūzbihān al-Baqlī, Kitāb ʿabhar al-ʿāshiqīn, eds Henry Corbin and
Muḥammad Muʿīn (Tehran: Institut français d’Iranologie de Téhéran,
1968), 139; Carl W. Ernst, ‘The Stages of Love in Early Persian Sufism,
from Rābiʿa to Rūzbihān’, in The Heritage of Sufism, vol. 1: Classical
Persian Sufism from its Origins to Rumi (700–1300), ed. Leonard
Lewisohn (Oxford: Oneworld, 1992), 452–3.
74 This is a reference to a well-attested hadith that states that ‘God created
Adam in his/His image/form (ʿalā ṣūratihi)’. See Christopher Melchert,
‘God Created Adam in His Image’, JQS 13, no. 1 (2011): 113–24. See also
William Montgomery Watt, ‘Created in His Image’, Transactions of the
Glasgow University Oriental Society 18 (1961): 38–49; Kister, ‘Ādam’,
137–8. Elliot R. Wolfson has noted a similar idea in Jewish medieval
mysticism: ‘We can speak of the convergence of anthropomorphism and
theomorphism in the visionary experience: to attribute human form to
God is to attribute divine forms to humans.’ Wolfson, Speculum, 69.
75 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 1:40–1.
76 Ernst, ‘Stages of Love’, 452–3.
77 Note the contradiction with Rūzbihān’s earlier statement that the
angels were created only for worship and were incapable of loving God
properly.
78 This idea may itself be a reflection of the controversial practice of some
Sufis of gazing at the beautiful faces of young boys, believed to reflect
the beauty of God. See Lloyd Ridgeon, ‘The Controversy of Shaykh
Awḥad al-Dīn Kirmānī and Handsome, Moon-Faced Youths: A Case

171

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 172 | seeing god in sufi qur ʾan commentaries

Study of Shāhid-Bāzī in Medieval Sufism’, JSS 1 (2012): 3–30; Bell, Love

Theory, 139–44.
79 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 1:418.
80 Q 2:30.
81 Q 2:32; Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 1:41.
82 Being dyed with the ‘colour of God’ is a reference to ṣibghat Allāh men-
tioned in Q 2:138.
83 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 1:43. Rūzbihān presents a similar argument in his Sharḥ-i
shaṭḥiyāt. Iblīs failed to see God in Adam, because he did not look at
Adam with the eyes of a true monotheist. He claimed to have lost the
light of his eyes when he saw other than God, not realising that there is
none other than God: ‘He rejected the non-divine, because he saw the
non-divine [in Adam]. But there was no non-divine . . . By looking at
Adam he became veiled from the uniqueness of the Unique ( fardāniyat-i
fard). [If this had not been the case], then how would someone looking
for the Unique be distracted by Adam and the world? God had veiled
him by Adam. Because he saw Adam in Adam, he became veiled from
Adam through himself, so that he did not see the reality of Adam.’ See
Rūzbihān al-Baqlī, Sharḥ-i shaṭḥiyāt, ed. Henri Corbin (Tehran: Institut
français d’Iranologie de Téhéran, 1981), 513–15; see also this passage
in Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 45.
84 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 1:419.
85 Ballanfat, Quatre traités, 172–3. See also Awn, Satan’s Tragedy, 124–9;
Ridgeon, ‘Sufi Perspective of Evil’, 114.  
86 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 2:503–4.
87 Carl Ernst defines Rūzbihān’s concept of jabarūt as ‘locus for experi-
encing the wrathful and powerful manifestations of the Attributes of
majesty’. Ernst, Ruzbihan, 31.
88 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 1:44.
89 Ibid., 2:504–5.
90 Ibid., 1:44–5.
91 Ibid., 1:45.
92 Ibid., 2:504.
93 Ibid., 1:424.
94 Ibid., 1:422.
95 Ibid., 1:422–3.
96 Ibid., 1:423.

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 the first boundary crossing | 173

97 Ibid., 2:506.
98 Ibid., 1:423.
99 Ibid., 2:506.
100 Ibid., 1:44.
101 Ibid., 3:87.
102 Ibid., 1:45.
103 Ibid., 1:45.
104 Ibid., 2:505.
105 Ibid., 2:505.
106 Godlas, ‘Influences’, 87.
107 Baqlī, ʿAbhar, 13 (translation from Ernst, ‘Stages of Love’, 452).
108 Aḥmad al-Samʿānī, Rawḥ al-arwāḥ fī sharḥ asmāʾ al-malik al-fattāḥ,
ed. Najīb Māyil Hirawī (Tehran: Shirkat-i intishārāt-i ʿilmī wa farhangī,
1989), 206. Translation from Chittick, Divine Love, 153. See also
Maybudī, Kashf, 5:503; Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 138.

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5
Excursus: Embodying the Vision of God
in Theology and Sufism

Introduction

While this study is intended to be on Sufi eschatology in a broader

sense, the first two case studies have shown that focusing on one
dominant aspect of the Sufi eschatological imagination – the vision
of God – is almost unavoidable. Although this theme is not equally
dominant in all of the works under discussion – al-Qushayrī in par-
ticular seems not to have been interested in it – it does stand out
as the most significant theme among the majority of authors. It is
certainly the most relevant for the theme of boundary crossing. This
raises a theoretical challenge to our proposed contextualist approach:
it was precisely this theme of vision that was much favoured by those
scholars who wished to decontextualise and ‘perennialise’ mysticism.
According to their approach, the theme of vision is paradigmatic for
the ‘experiential’ and private experience that, similar to the theme of
‘mystical union’, transcends the particularities of religious traditions
and is deemed universal.1
In the context of the issue of the vision of God, the scholar of
Jewish mysticism Elliot R. Wolfson has theoretically elaborated on
this contextualist/perennialist debate. One may say that his study is
the most prominent study available on seeing God in (Jewish) mysti-

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cism to date. He is, therefore, also worth mentioning in the context

of our study. Although being in favour of a contextualist and con-
structivist approach, he shuns the ‘hard constructivist’ end of the
perennialist–constructivist continuum and proposes a softer con-
textualist approach. On the one hand, he confirms that the mystic’s
­understanding of his or her vision of God, and the way that he or
she works towards this vision, is determined by the mystic’s own
religious tradition and context, and ‘pre-experiential beliefs’.2 On
the other hand, borrowing elements from Eliade’s theory of mysti-
cism, he leaves some space for the idea that there may be a shared
phenomenal structure among those religious traditions, and that a
comparison between different religious traditions is possible along
these structural lines despite the differences in context. He believes
that the category of ‘vision’ may well be such a common structure that
it enables comparison between different religious and mystical tradi-
tions.3 Given the fact that the faculty of vision is a common human
characteristic, it is not surprising that ‘vision’ is also a universally
recognised common structure of mystical experiences. It is, therefore,
legitimate to compare different traditions, and different modalities
of vision within a tradition, along similar structures. However, this
does not mean that, as perennialists would claim, all of these claimed
visions are essentially the same, though expressed differently. This
approach still leaves space to recognise the particularities of each
claimed vision, their rootedness in their specific traditions and even
their mediated and genealogical nature; the form of a claimed vision
may incorporate elements of claimed visions passed on by one’s pre-
decessor or teacher.
Wolfson proposes the following typology of visions of God, which
may be useful to keep in mind for the following three chapters. He
first stresses that the vision of God that Jewish mystics sought and
claimed to have were never understood to be physical visions within
the spatial-temporal world. Rather, it was understood as a contem-
plative vision.4 I believe the same holds true for the vision of God
claimed by Islamic mystics. These contemplative visions he divides
in two types: introvertive and cognitive. The introvertive kind finds

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its roots in Neoplatonism and considers the vision of God to be purely

intellectual, beyond image and form, rejecting the idea that senses or
sensory imagery play any meaningful role in how the vision is experi-
enced and described.5 The cognitive visions, however, are considered
to be ‘within the phenomenological parameters of human experience
as such’.6 God, according to this type, is perceived in an image and a
form that is derived from the images and symbols present in one’s
own religious tradition, and mediated by the senses.7
With these divisions in physical, contemplative-introvertive and
contemplative-cognitive visions in mind, in this chapter we offer an
overview of modes of vision as understood by Sufis in the period of
our interest. In Chapters 3 and 4, we focused on, respectively, the
final boundary crossing from this world to the otherworld and the
first boundary crossing from the otherworld to this world. In both
cases, we have witnessed the centrality of the theme of vision to these
boundary crossings. In the case studies in Chapters 6 and 7, we will
focus on two examples of this-worldly boundary crossing in the form
of the vision of God by first Moses and then Muhammad. This current
chapter forms an important background study to the modes of vision
proposed and discussed in the following two chapters. First, we take
a closer look at the theological discussions about the possibility and
modalities of the vision of God in this world and the otherworld. Next
we discuss a set of Sufi approaches to the same issue that testify to
the contemplative approach to the vision of God within Sufism. We
conclude with a discussion of the views of our main authors on the
issue of the vision of God in their non-tafsīr writings.

Theological Discussions on the Vision of God

Several verses in the Qurʾan allude only fragmentarily to the existence

of the idea of a vision of God, while other verses seemingly speak
against the concept. The request for a vision in this world is men-
tioned three times in an apparently negative sense. Q 2:55 and 4:153
mention a request from the people of Israel to Moses to show them
God, after which they are thunderstruck. In Q 7:143 Moses himself
requests this, and is apparently refused the vision and faints. A meet-

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ing (liqāʾ) with God is alluded to in several verses dealing with the Day
of Judgement, for example Q 6:31, 9:77 and 18:105.8 Hadith literature
contains more explicit references in favour of a vision as a reward in
the hereafter.9 It is not exactly clear when the issue first became con-
troversial, and whether it has non-Islamic roots.10 Van Ess indicates
that the issue was already discussed by Jahm b. Ṣafwān (d. 128/746)
and his opponents, as well as by alleged anthropomorphists like
Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 150/767), and thus predates the rise of the
Muʿtazila.11 From the early fourth/tenth century onwards, with the
careers of al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/935–6) and al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944),
and the late Muʿtazilī ʿAbd al-Jabbār (d. 415/1025), the formal dialec-
tic discussions by theological schools on the issue have reached us.
The positions of these different schools are fairly well documented,12
thus a brief overview suffices.
Three main issues have occupied theologians concerning the vision
of God: its theoretical possibility in both this world and the otherworld,
its actual occurrence and its modality.13 The main positions are divided
between the Muʿtazila and Jahmiyya on the one side of the spectrum,
from the viewpoint of categorically denying its possibility and occur-
rence, and the Ashʿarīs, Māturīdīs and Ḥanbalī traditionists on the
other side confirming its possibility in both abodes and its occurrence
in the hereafter, but differing on its modality. The general trend in
the Muʿtazilī and Jahmī schools was to deny the ocular vision of God
on grounds of the incorporeality of God: what has neither body nor
direction cannot be seen. The Jahmiyya refused the vision of God both
in the otherworld and this world, as well as in dreams. In addition,
they rejected the ascension of Muhammad and his subsequent vision:
Paradise was not yet created according to their theology and they held
God to be everywhere and nowhere, not in heaven.14 The Muʿtazilīs did
not base their reasoning on the Qurʾanic texts, but rather saw certain
Qurʾanic texts as being confirmation of the doctrine they had reached
through dialectic reasoning. It was rationally impossible to see God,
and thus were the Qurʾanic passages interpreted and understood.15
The Ashʿarīs, Māturīdīs and Ḥanbalī traditionists generally agreed
on the theoretical possibility of the vision of God in both this world

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and the otherworld, and on its occurrence in the otherworld, but they
differed on its modality. For Ḥanbalī traditionists, texts of Qurʾan and
hadith in their apparent meaning sufficed to confirm the existence
of ruʾya (vision) in the hereafter for the believers, and its modal-
ity by the physical eye.16 The position of the Ashʿarīs was rooted
in the view of the traditionists, but added dialectical reasoning to
textual, philological and exegetical arguments (to a larger extent than
the Māturīdīs, who mostly relied on the latter). They deemed vision
theoretically possible in both this world and the otherworld, based
on the argument of existence: God exists and by definition every-
thing that exists can be seen.17 They stated that it only occurs in the
otherworld as a reward for the believers. On the modality of the
vision, they were more equivocal. Although early voices insisted on a
non-comprehensive physical vision with the eye, sometimes nuanced
by the clause ‘without mentioning how’ (bi-lā kayf), later thinkers,
among whom were Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) and Fakhr
al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210), had more complicated positions on the
issue and proposed a ‘vision’ on an imaginary and cognitive level.18 It
would be a step too far to treat these arguments extensively here; for
now it suffices to conclude that there was still significant movement
and debate on the issue in the time frame that we are dealing with.19

A Typology of This-worldly Vision in Early Sufism

In early Sufism, generally speaking the idea of an otherworldly ocular

vision of God as being the ultimate reward in the hereafter was widely
accepted as both possible and existent. This vision was thus consid-
ered to be physical, not only contemplative. This wide acceptance
can be explained by the fact that the Muʿtazilī and Jahmī creeds were
historically insignificant among Sufis. Most Sufis from the formative
period had either Ashʿarī or traditionist leanings.20 The concept of
this-worldly vision led to more discord. Some Sufi authorities rejected
the idea completely, while others formulated theories of a vision of the
heart (ruʾya bi’l-qalb) that allowed an abstract, contemplative, non-
anthropomorphic and non-indwelling vision of God, often referred to
as mushāhada (witnessing).21

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The inception of these different views must be sought in early

proto-Sufism. In the circles of the renunciants (zuhhād or nussāk), the
denial of a this-worldly vision was not self-evident. Rather bold and
seemingly anthropomorphic claims were made about the possibility
of a this-worldly vision, sometimes in the sense of God’s incarnation in
humans and animals (ḥulūl).22 In his Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn, the famous
theologian al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/936) three times mentions a group that
he calls the nussāk, and three times links them to the possibility of a
this-worldly vision of God:

Among the nussāk of the Sufis are those who speak about ḥulūl, that
the Creator is incarnated in creatures, and that it is possible that
he incarnates in a human, a wild animal and other individuals. The
people who say this, when they see something that they deem beau-
tiful they say: ‘We do not know whether God is maybe incarnated in
it.’23
Among them are those who presume that worship can bring
them to the point that they see God, eat from the fruits of the Garden
and embrace the beautifully eyed women (ḥūr al-ʿayn) in this
world.24

However, this vision of God appears to have been controversial even

among this group:

A group from among the Sufis deemed it possible that miracles

(muʿjizāt) become manifest to the upright, and that the fruits of the
Garden come to them in this world and they eat from them, and
they have sexual intercourse with the ḥūr al-ʿayn in this world, and
the angels appear to them, and the devils (shayāṭīn) appear to them
and they fight them, and they do not deem it possible to see God in
this world . . . And others deemed all that we mentioned about their
predecessors possible, and also deemed it possible to see God in this
world, and to accompany Him and to sit with Him.25

It is very likely that these passages refer to figures like Abū Ḥulmān
al-Dimashqī (d. c. 340/951), who claimed that God could be heard
and seen through creation; Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī (d. 215/830),

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who did not go as far as claiming a this-worldly vision, but whose

students did claim intimacy with the otherworldly ḥūr al-ʿayn in this
world; Walīd b. Zayd (d. 177/793), who believed God would be seen
in this world according to one’s pious acts; or Kahmas (d. 149/766),
who was indicted for believing that God could even be touched.26 Such
conceptions of God were more widespread. Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī
(d. c. 261/874–5) claimed a vision of God as a beardless young man
and Abū Bakr al-Qaḥṭabī even claimed to have seen God in the form
of his mother.27 Such sensory conceptions of God also made it into
hadith traditions that had their root in Syrian jihad circles, the same
milieu that early renunciants like al-Dārāni were part of.28 A prophetic
tradition attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās relates how in a dream Muhammad
sees God ‘in his most beautiful form’ and feels how God touches him
between his shoulders.29 Other transmissions also relate a vision by
Muhammad of God in the form of a beardless young man, of a young
man with long hair, as a young man sitting on a throne with his foot in
a meadow of light, as a beardless young man behind a veil of pearls,
with his feet in green, or on a camel in a cloak of wool.30
Al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243/857) firmly criticised these ideas,
stating that whoever claimed to have seen God, the angels or the ḥūr
al-ʿayn was a liar.31 He himself was much more careful and modest
when speaking of the possibility of a this-worldly vision, speaking
rather as a theoretician than from experience. Following the tradi-
tionist position, he considered the otherworldly vision to be ocular.
The yearning for this vision is the basis for the enrapturing love of
God.32 The vision of God is such an overwhelming experience that
the technique of imagining it into presence (tawahhum) cannot be
applied to it as it can to Paradise and Hell. Thus a vision of God in this
world does not exist, not even with the heart or in the imagination.33
A similar denunciation was expressed by al-Sarrāj (d. 378/988) in
his Kitāb al-lumaʿ, albeit in ambiguous language. It first discusses the
question of the vision of God by the heart briefly and neutrally, defin-
ing it as ‘the gazing of the hearts towards what has been inherited in
the unseen by the lights of certainty (anwār al-yaqīn) by means of
the realities of faith (ḥaqāʾiq al-īmān)’.34 He quotes ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib as

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being in favour of it.35 However, a later passage is specifically dedi-

cated to ‘those who are wrong concerning the vision of the hearts’. He
mentions that he has heard of a group from Syria through a treatise
of al-Kharrāz who believed that they could see God in this world with
their hearts just as they would see Him in Paradise with the eye.36 He
gives an example of the followers of al-Ṣubayḥī in Basra, who thought
they had seen God on a throne while it was in reality Satan delud-
ing them. He also denounces the Sufis who claim to have travelled
to Paradise and to have seen God there.37 This experience he holds
to be unique to the Prophet Muhammad (Q 53:11). He warns the
Sufis that all lights in this world are created and cannot be identi-
fied as God.38 To al-Sarrāj, the only possible this-worldly vision is
by the mode of witnessing (mushāhada). To explain its meaning, he
quotes al-Kharrāz supporting the witnessing of God with the heart:
who witnesses God with the heart, has nothing other than God in his
heart. The vision (ruʾya) of the heart, which al-Kharrāz refuted in his
treatise to the Damascenes, al-Sarrāj considers not to be the same as
witnessing (mushāhada) with the heart. Witnessing, Sarrāj explains
by quoting ʿAmr b. ʿUthmān al-Makkī (d. 291/903 or 297/910), is a
form that combines the vision of the heart with that of the eye, and
looks upon things with a contemplative eye to see God in it. The vision
of the heart is less pure. It is merely a form of Vergegenwärtigung
(tawahhum, or ‘imagining it into presence’), as in the hadith ‘Worship
God as if you see Him’.39
Moreover, al-Kalābādhī (d. 380/990 or 384/994) denied the
possibility of this-worldly vision, with either the eye or the heart,
and held this to be the position of the Sufis. He argued that such a
noble blessing as seeing God could only occur in a place as noble as
Paradise. Since this world is a passing abode, the Eternal is not seen
here. In addition, since Moses was rejected the vision in this world
(Q 7:143), others, who are all lower in rank than he, certainly could
not reach it. In the case of Muhammad, Kalābādhī’s Taʿarruf does note
the difference of opinion on whether he saw God during his ascension
(miʿrāj), mentioning the names of the different authorities in favour
of and against Muhammad’s this-worldly vision, whether with the

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physical eye or with the heart.40 However, his discussion of the issue
still concludes with a confirmation that he does not know ‘of a single
shaykh of this order – that is, not one who is recognized as a valid
authority – [who agrees] that God is seen in this world, or that any of
His creation has seen Him’.41 Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz and al-Junayd are
specifically mentioned as having written refutations on deluded Sufis
who claimed that God could be seen in this world.42
However, these authors did not have the last word on the matter.
A century after al-Muḥāsibī, Sufis indeed proposed a vision of God with
the heart by the manifestation (tajallī) of God’s light on it, or a vision of
God through creation rather than in creation, thus differing from the
understanding of the early ḥulūliyya. While these early understandings
still had a physical idea of the vision, later interpretations took it to be a
strictly contemplative vision through the ocular contemplation of crea-
tion.43 On vision by the heart, al-Shiblī (d. 334/946) stated in a line of
poetry that ‘When the eye does not see You, then still the heart does see
You.’44 Ibn ʿAṭāʾ (d. 309/922) said about Q 50:37 (‘who has a heart’) that
it signifies a heart that sees God.45 Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Niffarī
(d. c. 366/976–7) also endorsed the idea of a this-worldly vision of God.
In his work al-Mawāqif, direct this-worldly vision of God is described as
being the final station (mawqif) on the mystical path. To him, the latter
depends on the former: who does not see God in this world, will not see
Him in the otherworld.46 The vision of God is ultimately all that matters
to him, and the only thing that can save one from the Fire:

He let me stand in the Fire. I saw it consuming knowledge (ʿilm),

works (ʿamal), wisdom (ḥikma) and experiential knowledge
(maʿrifa), standpoints (mawāqif) and stations (maqāmāt). I saw the
intellects in their drawing near as firewood for it. I saw the hearts
in their sincerity as firewood for it. So I became hot! And it said to
me: ‘If you have seen God, then you will come to me with knowledge,
works, wisdom, experiential knowledge and will say to me: this is
your firewood so consume it. And if you have not seen God, then
you are my firewood, not your knowledge, not your works, not your
wisdom and not your experiential knowledge.’47

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Al-Hujwīrī’s Kashf al-maḥjūb explains manifestation (tajallī) as

follows:

The blessed effect of Divine illumination on the hearts of the blest,

whereby they are made capable of seeing God with their hearts. The
difference between spiritual vision (ruʾyat ba-dil) and actual vision
(ruʾyat-i ʿiyān) is this, that those who experience tajallī (manifesta-
tion of God) see or do not see, according as they wish, or see at one
time and do not see at another time, while those who experience
actual vision in Paradise cannot but see, even though they wish not
to see; for it is possible that tajallī should be hidden, whereas ruʾyat
(vision) cannot possibly be veiled.48

As for seeing God through creation (rather than His indwelling

in creation), al-Wāsiṭī stated that one’s belief in one God is only com-
plete when one sees God in every speck of dust from God’s throne
to the lowest earth (min al-ʿarsh ilā al-tharā). Many similar sayings
can be found in later authorities. Vision is here not so much seeing
God Himself, but rather contemplating what is created in such a way
that one understands that God is responsible for it, works through it,
and in a way manifests in it: creation is a mirror for the Creator, as
it were.49 This trend could be considered a rudimentary form of the
later, more systematic, doctrine of tajallī of the school of Ibn al-ʿArabī,
also present, albeit less systematically, in the work of Rūzbihān.50
The discussion in early Sufism never chrystallised into a definitive
position. Although the anthropomorphic and immanentist aspects
had largely been swept aside by the concepts of ruʾyat al-qalb and
mushāhada, and thus the yearning to see God in this world had been
brought into harmony with the outward (ẓāhir) interpretation of reli-
gion, Sufi authorities still did not reach a consensus on vision by the
heart. It must be noted that in the understanding of the later Sufis,
who held vision by the heart to be possible, mostly by using the term
mushāhada, this ‘vision’ did not give a specific form to God. The claimed
vision was considered to be what Wolfson calls ‘introvertive’ rather
than cognitive. Although the language chosen to express the alleged
experience may have been visual, they most likely did not mean to

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have really seen God in a form: the ‘vision’ was abstract. Rather, it was
meant as what Gramlich has called ‘Gott vor Augen haben’ (having
God in mind): the Sufi must expel from the heart everything other
than God, and totally direct all thought and ambitions, all of the heart,
towards God alone, thinking of and envisioning none other than God.51
It is as such a contemplative state of being totally directed towards
God, rather than a physical visionary experience.

The Commentators on the Vision of God in their Non-tafsīr

Works

In the other works of our commentators, several remarks are made

about the possibility and the modality of the vision of God. From
al-Sulamī, there are no clear statements of his own available on
credal matters. Moreover, we have no credal works from Maybudī,
and we can rely on only his commentary for his opinions on the
vision. However, it is a different scenario for al-Qushayrī, al-Daylamī
and Rūzbihān: all three wrote texts on creed that contain explicit and
intended statements on the question of the vision of God. What
becomes clear from them is that there is quite a difference between
the first and the latter two: al-Daylamī and Rūzbihān enthusiastically
defend and describe the possibility, actual occurrence and modal-
ity of this-worldly visions of God, while al-Qushayrī is much more
reserved and is not even particularly sympathetic towards forms of
contemplative vision.

Al-Qushayrī

It may not come as a surprise that al-Qushayrī, as an Ashʿarī partisan

in a time of political unrest between Muʿtazilī and Ashʿarī factions,
gave some space to the subject of the vision of God in his works. In
his formal credal work, Lumaʿ fī’l-iʿtiqād, he conforms with Ashʿarī
positions on the matter:

[That] He be seen is theoretically possible and, on the basis of rev-

elation, is certain for the believers when they are in paradise. As we
know Him today, although ‘No being is like Him’ (42.11), the believ-

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ers shall see Him tomorrow when they are in paradise, although ‘No
being is like Him’.52

In al-Fuṣūl fī’l-uṣūl, he repeats this position with added theological

nuance:

It is possible that the Creator (let Him be praised) be visually seen.

The evidence for this is that visibility does not entail the temporal
contingency of the visible in any way. Vision can, thus, have the
Eternal (let Him be praised) as its object, just as knowing and predi-
cation can.53

This position also entails the theoretical possibility of the vision

of God in this world. For the actual occurrence of such a this-worldly
vision, even in the inner contemplative sense, al-Qushayrī seems to
have had less enthusiasm than for its otherworldly counterpart. In
his famous work al-Risāla, he responds negatively to the question
of whether the vision of God in this world is possible by a God-given
miracle (karāma), claiming a scholarly consensus on the matter and
mentioning that al-Ashʿarī himself refuted it.54 Furthermore, he dis-
cusses very few terms related to the vision of God in his Risāla.55 He
does discuss the term mushāhada as the last stage of a threefold expe-
rience also comprising of divine presence (muḥāḍara) and unveiling
(mukāshafa). However, he does not explicitly link it to this-worldly
visionary experience of God. Quoting ʿAmr b. ʿUthmān al-Makkī
approvingly, he defines it as an experience of the manifestation
(tajallī) of God upon the heart. By this witnessing, one comes to expe-
riential knowledge (maʿrifa) of God, by which one’s self is erased.56
The possibility of seeing God in a dream may have been open to him.
Tradition has it that he once saw God in a dream and complained
to Him about his sick son, to which God responded by prescribing a
litany for his cure.57

Al-Daylamī

Al-Daylamī tackles the issue of the vision of God extensively and

polemically in his mystical-theological treatise Jawāhir al-asrār.58

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Although his affirmative position of the otherworldly vision fits well

within the Sunni mainstream, his argumentation is slightly different
and has its peculiarities. When he introduces the topic, he polemically
takes aim at the Muʿtazilīs and the philosophers, who according to
him have an inaccurate approach to the texts of Qurʾan and hadith and
thus to the vision of God. His issue with the Muʿtazilīs is that they hold
vision (ruʾya) to mean merely knowledge (ʿilm), and that the ‘vision’ of
God should thus be understood as knowledge of God. In a lengthy pas-
sage, he blames the philosophers for falsely taking the intellect (ʿaql)
as the foundation for understanding the Qurʾan and hadith, and com-
pares their approaches with the Ismāʿīlīs, to whom he applies by the
polemic epithets ‘libertines’ (ibāḥiyya) and ‘deviators’ (mulḥidīn).59
God, he holds, is known by necessity by both the believers and the
unbelievers in the hereafter. God creates this necessary knowledge in
them to fully grasp His eternal existence, and in so doing the perpetu-
ity of His reward and punishment. The vision of God with the eye of
the head (ʿayn al-raʾs) is the means of obtaining this knowledge.60 He
further involves typical verses (Q 75:22–3; 6:103; 7:143; 10:7, 26;
29:5) and hadiths in his argument to support his case for the existence
of the otherworldly vision and for the possibility of the vision in both
this world and the otherworld.61
On the issue of this-worldly vision, he claims to follow the main-
stream Sunni position. He specifies what he holds to be the correct
approach of the Sufi masters, even claiming a consensus among them.
He is explicit on both its possibility and its modality: God can be seen
in this-worldly life by the vision of the heart (baṣīrat al-qalb).62 In the
treatise he himself claims to have experienced it, stating that ‘after
having finished writing it on Thursday evening I saw God the entire
Friday night from its beginning to its end’.63 He holds the idea that
God is seen in the hereafter with the eye of the head and in this world
with the eye of the heart in a sleeping state, or somewhere between a
sleeping and a waking state, to be a position that was shared by many
of earlier generations among scholars, renunciants and Sufis.64 To him
there is no difference between seeing God in a sleeping or a waking
state: the essence as a vision of the heart is the same.65 He also names

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a list of earlier Sufi authorities who stated that they had experienced
the vision of God by the heart in this world, and who testified of this
experience in their sayings and writings.66 Their claim of this experi-
ence is sufficient evidence for him of the possibility of this vision, and
because of their piety and sincerity naturally overrules the claims of
those denying it: experience has a higher epistemic value than ration-
ality for al-Daylamī.67
He differentiates between the speculative theologians
(mutakallimūn) and the philosophers ( falāsifa) on the one side and
the masters of taṣawwuf on the other. The last of these recognise
that the essence (dhāt) and attributes (ṣifāt) of God may be experien-
tially known by means of witnessing (mushāhada) and vision (ruʾya)
through the vision of the heart (baṣīrat al-qalb), while the first two
believe that in this-worldly life knowledge of God can be obtained
only through the intellect (ʿaql).68 He thus describes a typical episte-
mological conflict between mystical-experiential and rational ways
of knowing. One could argue that this is where he and al-Qushayrī
diverge. Al-Qushayrī did not as explicitly recognise the epistemic
value of mystical experience, or of the vision of God, as al-Daylamī.

Rūzbihān

With the writings of Rūzbihān the issue becomes even more complex.
From his autobiography, Kashf al-asrār, it becomes very clear that
he subscribed to the possibility of a this-worldly vision of God, or
at least of His attributes and actions in the form of a visual divine
manifestation (tajallī). Carl Ernst has even claimed that ‘vision (ruʾya)
is the most important general category for mystical experience in
Rūzbihān’s vocabulary’.69 It appears that for Rūzbihān, this vision –
imagining God in human forms – is neither just an abstract introver-
tive witnessing, nor a full vision with the physiological eye. Rūzbihān
may be the clearest example thus far of what Wolfson calls a cognitive
vision: God is perceived in an image and a form that is derived from
the images and symbols present in his own religious and cultural
environment. Rūzbihān himself claims that theological argumenta-
tion becomes irrelevant once overwhelmed by the ecstatic vision of

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God. In Kashf al-asrār he describes how he feels when experiencing

this vision: ‘In my ecstasy and my spiritual state my heart did not
remember arguments about understanding God in human terms or
reducing him to abstraction, for in seeing the Most High, all traces of
intellects and sciences are erased.’70 However, when we read both the
descriptions of his visions and his theological statements on vision a
bit more closely, we can see that his claimed visionary encounters are
not devoid of theological presuppositions and are embedded in and
conditioned by his religious and cultural landscape.
In Masālik al-tawḥīd he shows himself to be true to the Ashʿarī
perspective on the matter. He confirms the vision with the eye in the
hereafter, and denies its occurrence in this world. 71 However, he does
not deny its possibility in this world, following the typical Ashʿarī argu-
ment that Moses as an impeccable prophet would not have requested
something impossible from God. Above all, he supports a vision in
sleep and in the heart, in different states:

But it is not impossible (mustaḥīl), rather the vision with the outer
eye (ruʾyat al-ʿayn al-ẓāhira) is conceivable ( jāʾiz). The evidence of
that is the request of Moses for the vision of God when he said, ‘My
Lord show [Yourself] to me, [so] I [can] look at you.’ It is impossible
that the prophet who was spoken to and elected for the message and
the Book would ask something that is impossible, and attributing
ignorance [in religious matters] to him is unbelief (kufr). And just
as God is known without [specifying] how (bi-lā-kayf), he is also
seen without [specifying] how (bi-lā-kayf), and he is not ‘owned’ by
creatures because seeing Him is confirmed. And the vision of God
is conceivable in sleep, and in wakefulness with the heart, because
of the saying of the Prophet [Muhammad]: ‘Who sees God in one’s
sleep will not be punished by the Fire.’ And he said: ‘Make your
bellies hungry and make your livers thirsty, then you will see God
with your heart.’ That is possible in states (ḥāl), in ecstasy (wajd), in
intoxication (sukr) and sobriety (ṣaḥw).72

In addition, in his work Mashrab al-arwāḥ – his explanation

of Sufi stations, states and technical vocabulary – he discusses the

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vision of God. Commenting on the station of seeing God outwardly

( jahratan), he again confirms its possibility in this world. As proof
of this possibility he mentions Moses’s request to see God, as well as
several traditions attributed to Muhammad in which he states he has
seen God. Rūzbihān asserts that in most cases this station is reached
at the time of death. Only perfect human beings (ahl al-kamāl) can
reach the vision of God during their lifetime.73 When discussing the
term ruʾya itself, he distinguishes three levels of this-worldly visions
to which his autobiography also testifies. The first is the vision of
the Garden, the second of God’s presence (muḥāḍara) and the third
the vision of God Himself. The highest level of seeing God Himself
is experienced when one is on the station of observance (riʿāya). He
mentions Q 53:11 (‘The heart did not belie what it saw’) to imply that
he means a vision of the heart.74 However, the heart is a passive organ
that is completely dependent on and subordinated to the spirit (rūḥ)
to be capable of vision. When the heart sees, it is a consequence of
the vision of the spirit. The human spirit is an eye in its origin, made
of God’s light, unveiled from God and capable of contemplating God’s
attributes, and through them His essence. While the heart observes
God’s attributes, the locus of the vision of God’s essence is primarily
the spirit. The heart, however, is the witness of the veracity of the
vision by the spirit, and thus of the sincerity of the spirit.75
In describing the modality of this vision, Rūzbihān follows
the Ashʿarī distinction between God’s essence (dhāt), attributes (ṣifāt)
and acts (afʿāl). Although God’s essence is impenetrable for the human,
and this essence cannot be known, seen nor witnessed directly except
by one’s spirit, one can see or witness manifestations of His attributes
and acts in and through creation, and through them come to indirect
vision and knowledge of God’s essence.76 These attributes and acts
become apparent in creation through visual divine manifestations of
majesty ( jalāl) and beauty ( jamāl), in a process that Ernst has defined
as ‘an endless game of hide and seek’.77 Rūzbihān connects this mode
of vision of God to iltibās (lit. ‘clothing’), a term typical for his mystical
thought that signifies a bestowal of divine qualities on humanity or
creation, a clothing with divinity.78 When in the state of iltibās, the

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believer is granted a vision of God through His attributes. Only that

is attainable, the vision of God’s unadulterated essence is rejected,
however:

God has granted him with what he is capable of grasping and does
not disturb the purity of intimacy for him, and makes him see him-
self in the cloth of His action ( fiʿl) until his existence (wujūd) with
God remains, and takes the fortune of the vision of the attributes
(ruʾyat al-ṣifāt) from His beauty. Don’t you see how God forbade
Moses from seeing the unadulterated (ruʾyat al-ṣirf), and turned him
away from Him, only after the iltibās, by His saying when he asked
what he asked, ‘You shall not see Me, but look at the mountain.’ The
Prophet clarified the realities of iltibās by his saying: ‘I have seen my
Lord in the best form.’79

Passionate love (ʿishq) is closely intertwined with vision: it is both

caused by as well as leads to the vision of God. Here a new term is
introduced: appearance (badāʾ). When God, the Passionately Loved
(al-Maʿshūq) also passionately loves the passionate lover (ʿāshiq), He
will show Himself to the lover with goodness and beauty. After God
has shown Himself to the passionate lover, the lover will want to see
Him. God then reveals Himself even more, so that the lover’s yearning
for the vision of God increases:

God is beyond appearance (badāʾ), but He wants to show to the

one who loves Him the majesty of His attributes ( jalāl ṣifātihi) and
lights of His essence (anwār dhātihi) that are hidden, and all that
is wanted. Regarding this God says to His beloved: ‘Have you not
looked towards your Lord’ (Q 25:45). The knower (ʿārif) said: ‘God
showing Himself is only at the end of passionate love.’80

Rūzbihān is the only one who is explicit on the modality and form
by which he beholds God in his vision of His manifestations. In Kashf
al-asrār, he relates how God manifests to him according to two cat-
egories: either as a manifestation of His majesty ( jalāl) and wrath
(qahr), or of His beauty ( jamāl) and grace (luṭf).81 Although Rūzbihān
as an Ashʿarī would never state that God has an actual body, still

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he corporealises his claimed vision of these manifestations of God

and often explicitly chooses bodily imagery. His embodiment of these
visions of God was a process mediated by the religious and cultural
environment of which he was a part. Ernst has noted the references
to Persian court culture in Rūzbihān’s visions of God: for example, he
sees God on his roof speaking to him in Persian or playing on drums
(ṭabl), a ritual court accessory of Persian kingship, and he approaches
the ‘court of God’ that he describes as guarded like princes by angels
and prophets.82 On manifestations of beauty, he refers to a prophetic
saying that states that the Prophet Muhammad saw God in His most
beautiful form.83 God also takes the form of a beautiful Turkish war-
rior, sometimes with a bow in his hand, sometimes with a lute, or is
dressed as a great Sufi shaykh; God manifests a shepherd dressed in
a woollen cloak or takes the form of Adam, wearing white clothes,
or He appears in the form of a lion.84 One could state that in a way
these descriptions signify a return to the understandings of the early
nussāk, appealing to the senses of sight, hearing and touch, albeit
in a non-physical, metaphysical appearance. One would expect God
to appear as a young beardless or long-haired boy in his visions as
well, following the hadith literature that depicts God in this form,
but this theme is absent, remarkably enough. Ernst has suggested
that Rūzbihān deliberately left this theme out, because he negatively
associated it with the practice of gazing at young boys.85

Conclusion

All of the modes of this-worldly vision proposed by our Sufi authors

in their non-tafsīr works fall within Wolfson’s category of contempla-
tive vision. This corresponds with the general trend within Sufism
in this period to eschew the older idea of physical visions related
to indwelling (ḥulūl) that were present in the early circles of the
renunciants (zuhhād). To reconcile this yearning to see God with the
idea of a transcendent God as developed in theology, they abstracted
the ocular vision of God of the zuhhād to an indirect inner vision
by the heart or by witnessing (mushāhada). Although the theoretical
possibility of seeing God during this-worldly life by the physical eye

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was generally upheld, none of the Sufis wished to claim the actual
occurrence of such a physical vision that had been disallowed even to
Moses. A contemplative vision, however, was considered conceivable,
to differing degrees. As we have seen, al-Qushayrī was very reluctant
to discuss the theme of vision, even in a contemplative mode. This
stands in stark contrast with the enthusiasm shown by al-Daylamī
and Rūzbihān. While in the case of al-Daylamī it remains somewhat
unclear whether God could be perceived in forms and images within
human categories of perception, or whether he meant an introver-
tive abstract vision, this is more explicit in the case of Rūzbihān: his
self-described visions clearly fall within the category of cognitive
­contemplative vision.
In the discussion of both theologians and Sufi authors, two exam-
ples keep appearing in the arguments of both advocates and adver-
saries of seeing God during this-worldly life: the request by Moses to
see God (Q 7:143) and Muhammad’s heavenly journey (Q 53:1–18).
It is to these two case studies that we turn in the next two chapters.

Notes
1 See Underhill, Mysticism, 279–97; Wolfson, Speculum, 52.
2 Wolfson, Speculum, 54.
3 Ibid., 52–5.
4 The Arabic mushāhada, which we translate as ‘witnessing’, is often
translated as ‘contemplation’ or ‘contemplative vision’.
5 Wolfson, Speculum, 58–9.
6 Ibid., 60.
7 Ibid., 60–1, 66–7.
8 See Claude Gilliot, ‘La vision de Dieu dans l’au delà. Exégèse, tradition
et théologie en Islam’, in Pensée grecque et sagesse d’Orient. Hommage
á Michel Tardieu, eds Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi et al. (Turnhout:
Brepols, 2009), 241–7; Tuft, ‘Controversy’, 6–16; Wesley W. Williams,
‘Tajallī wa-Ruʾya: A Study of Anthropomorphic Theophany and Visio Dei
in the Hebrew Bible, the Qurʾān and Early Sunnī Islam’ (PhD dissertation,
University of Michigan, 2008), 76–100.
9 Hadith literature on the question of ruʾya is a genre in itself, worthy of a

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 excursus: embodying the vision of god | 193

separate study. For fourth-/tenth-century collections of hadith material

specifically on the vision of God, see Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Dāraquṭnī, Ruʾyat
Allāh jalla wa-ʿalā, ed. Abū Uways al-Kurdī (Cairo: Dār Ibn Tayimiyya,
2013) and the Kitāb ruʾyat Allāh by Ibn al-Naḥḥās (d. 416/1025)
transcribed and translated into German in Bernd Radtke, Materialen
zur alten islamischen Frömmigkeit (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 195–214.
Al-Daqqāq al-Aṣbahānī (d. 516/1122) also dedicated a treatise to the
subject. Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Muḥammad
al-Aṣbahānī al-Daqqāq, Majlīs imlāʾ fī ruʾyat Allāh, ed. al-Sharīf Ḥātim b.
ʿĀrif al-ʿAwnī (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd li’l-nashr wa’l-tawzīʿ, 1997).
As late as the ninth/fifteenth century, the renowned hadith scholar Ibn
Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852/1449) composed a treatise specifically on the
issue of whether Muhammad had seen God during his night journey.
Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Ghunya fī masʾalat al-ruʾya (Ṭanṭā:
Dār al-ṣahāba li’l-turāth, 1992). For further discussion of the use of
hadith material in the debate on the vision of God, see Williams, ‘Tajallī
wa-Ruʾya’, 155–203.
10 On the possible non-Islamic origins, see Tuft, ‘Controversy’, 47–54;
Sarah Stroumsa, ‘Voiles et miroirs: visions surnaturelles en théologie
judéo-arabe médiévale’, in Autour du regard: mélanges Gimaret, ed. Éric
Chaumont (Leuven: Peeters, 2002), 78–80.
11 Muqātil believed in an anthropomorphic otherworldly vision of God and
even a physical touch by God. Similar ideas were proffered by other early
anthropomorphists. TG, 1:345, 362, 383; 2:208, 379, 528–30. Tuft has
suggested that the beginning of the controversy should be located at the
start of the ninth century ce. He dates the start of the controversy e silen-
tio on the basis of the earliest mention in early credal texts. He locates
the earliest mention of the vision of God (more specifically liqāʾ Allāh, the
meeting with God) in the Waṣīya attributed to Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 148/767),
which he believes to have been authored somewhere between Abū
Ḥanīfa’s death year and the death of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855). Tuft,
‘Controversy’, 34–45.
12 See Tuft, ‘Controversy’; Éric Chaumont, ed., Autour du regard: mélanges
Gimaret (Leuven: Peeters, 2002); Pūrjavādī, Ruʾyat-i māh; Williams,
‘Tajallī wa-Ruʾya’; Gilliot, ‘Vision de Dieu’; Louis Gardet, Dieu et la des-
tinée de l’homme (Paris: Libraire Philosophique J. Vrin, 1967), 338–46;
EI2, s.v. ‘Ruʾyat Allāh’, by D. Gimaret, 8:649; see also the index in TG,

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under ruʾyat Allāh. Shīʿī approaches on the issue are close to the Muʿtazilī
approaches. They are not presented in this overview, because of their
limited influence on Sufi thought in the period under scrutiny. For a
discussion of Shīʿī positions, see Georges Vajda, ‘Le problème de la vision
de Dieu (ruʾya) d’après quelques auteurs šīʿites duodécimains’, in Etudes
de théologie et de philosophie arabo-islamiques à l’époque classique, eds
Daniel Gimaret, M. Hayoun and J. Jolivet (London: Variorum Reprints,
1986), 31–54.
13 Gardet, Dieu, 338–40.
14 On the position of the Jahmiyya, see TG, 1:139; 2:186, 502, 504, 528, 535,
700–1; 3:49, 184; 5:220–1.
15 On the Muʿtazila, see Tuft, ‘Controversy’, 175–212; TG, 3:382, 472–4,
496; 4:9, 57; 5:398.
16 The Ḥanbalī traditionist Ibn al-Qayyim, in his work on eschatology Ḥādī
al-arwāḥ, states at the start of the chapter on the vision of God: ‘This
chapter is the most honourable, most significant and most important
chapter of the book, the most dear to ahl al-sunna wa’l-jamāʿa and the
most difficult for the people of innovation and error (ahl al-bidʿa wa’l-
ḍalāla).’ Thus he confirms both the centrality of the vision of God to
the Sunni eschatological imagination and the importance of the issue
in polemics between theological schools. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Ḥādī
al-arwāḥ ilā bilād al-afrāḥ (Cairo: Maktabat al-Mutanabbī, n.d.), 195.
17 Gardet, Dieu, 339; Tuft, ‘Controversy’, 133–66.
18 For a discussion of al-Ghazālī, see Tuft, ‘Controversy’, 167–74. On
al-Rāzī, see Guy Monnot, ‘Vision de Dieu et bonheur de l’homme dans
le commentaire coranique de Fahr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’, in Autour du regard:
mélanges Gimaret, ed. Éric Chaumont (Leuven: Peeters, 2002), 63–75.
19 For a more elaborate discussion of the complexity and evolution of these
dialectical discussions, I once again refer to Tuft, ‘Controversy’.
20 Karamustafa has satisfactorily described the link between Sufis and
the traditionists and schools of kalām. See Karamustafa, Formative
Period, 87–108. Some authors have pointed out that most Sufis pre-
ferred Ashʿarism to Muʿtazilism due to the former’s acceptance of
miracles (karāmāt), refuted by the latter. Also their emphasis on God’s
omnipotence and the limitation of reason made it more acceptable for
Sufis who preferred an epistemology of experience to rationalism. See
Ernst, Ruzbihan, 28; Melchert, ‘Sufis and Competing Movements’, 243;

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Madelung, Religious Trends, 46–7. However, some Muʿtazilī Sufis are

in fact known to us, the so-called Ṣūfiyyāt al-muʿtazila. They seem not
to have been part of the Muʿtazilī mainstream and to have had some
theological particularities. Sviri even suggests that the term Muʿtazilī
originally must have had the connotation of ‘renunciant’ or ‘ascetic’,
rather than a theological meaning. Bernd Radtke, ‘Von den hinderlichen
Wirkungen der Exstase und dem Wesen der Ignoranz’, in Neue Kritische
Gänge: Zu Stand und Aufgaben der Sufikforschung, ed. Bernd Radtke
(Utrecht: M. Th. Houtsma Stichting, 2005), 280; TG, 3:130–4; 4:88–94;
EI2, s.v. ‘Muʿtazila’, by D. Gimaret, 7:784; Sviri, ‘Reconsidering Terms’,
23–8.
21 The suggestion of a vision by the heart was also made by the Muʿtazilī
Abū’l-Hudhayl (d. 227/841) pertaining to the hereafter. TG, 3:256.
22 Josef van Ess, ‘Schönheit und Macht. Verborgene Ansichten des islamis-
chen Gottesbildes’, in Schönheit und Mass: Beiträge der Eranos-Tagungen
2005 und 2006, eds Erik Hornung and Andreas Schweizer (Basel:
Schwabe Verlag, 2007), 15–24.
23 Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn, 13–14.
24 Ibid., 289.
25 Ibid., 438–9.
26 Karamustafa, Formative Period, 105; Massignon, Essay, 80. Van Ess has
suggested that Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz’s correspondence with a group of
Sufis in Damascus, Kitāb ruʾyat al-qulūb, is directed to the followers of
Abū Ḥulmān. In this treatise, al-Kharrāz is said to refute a group who held
the view that they could see God with their hearts in this world as the
inhabitants of Paradise will see God with their eyes. Unfortunately this
treatise is lost. The treatise is mentioned by al-Sarrāj and al-Kalābādhī
in their Sufi handbooks. Sarrāj, Lumaʿ, 428; Abū Bakr al-Kalābādhī,
Kitāb al-ta’arruf li-madhhab ahl al-taṣawwuf, translated by Arthur J.
Arberry as The Doctrine of the Ṣūfīs (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1977), 27; Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz, Rasāʾil, ed. Qāsim al-Sāmarrāʾī
(Baghdad: Maṭbaʿat al-majmaʿ al-ʿilmī al-ʿirāqī, 1967), 18; TG, 1:144; EI2,
s.v. ‘al-Kharrāz’, by. W. Madelung, 4:1083–4. It may have something to
do with the Sālimiyya as well, who are said to have believed in a vision
of God in human form (and thus with the eye), allegedly even in the form
of Muhammad and Adam. TG, 2:109; Baldick, Mystical Islam, 52; Knysh,
Islamic Mysticism, 104.

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27 Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 137.

28 Van Ess, ‘Schönheit und Macht’, 15–24.
29 Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 136–7; van Ess, ‘Schönheit und Macht’, 15–24;
Ritter, ‘Philologica II’, 256–7.
30 Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 136–7; van Ess, ‘Schönheit und Macht’, 15–24;
Josef van Ess, The Youthful God: Anthropomorphism in Early Islam
(Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University, 1988), 9–13.
31 For a German translation of this passage from Muḥāsibī’s Naṣāʾiḥ, see
van Ess, Gedankenwelt, 216.
32 Margaret Smith holds that yearning for the vision of God was the basis
for the mystical love of God in the work of al-Muḥāsibī. Margaret Smith,
An Early Mystic of Baghdad: A Study of the Life and Teaching of Ḥārith b.
Asad al-Muḥāsibī, a.d. 781–857 (London: Sheldon Press, 1977), 244–8.
33 Van Ess, Gedankenwelt, 213–18.
34 Sarrāj, Lumaʿ, 350.
35 ‘When ʿAlī was asked “Do you see our Lord?” he said, “How can we wor-
ship who we do not see?” Then he said, “The eyes do not see Him, mean-
ing in this world by the uncovering of the eye-vision (kashf al-ʿiyān), but
the hearts see Him by the realities of faith. God has said: ‘The heart did
not belie what it saw.’” He thus confirmed the vision by the heart in this
world.’ Sarrāj, Lumaʿ, 350. The role of the cited Qurʾan verse in the issue
will be further scrutinised in the next chapter.
36 See note 26 in this chapter.
37 This is very likely a criticism of al-Basṭāmī, whose claim of a miʿrāj is,
although not unique, the most famous.
38 Sarrāj, Lumaʿ, 428.
39 Ibid., 68–9.
40 For the different positions in this discussion, see Chapter 7. Here it is
worthwhile noting that al-Kalābādhī conceptualised the contested
vision of Muhammad during his night journey as a this-worldly vision,
despite its taking place during a journey to an otherworldly realm. This
shows that the concept of dunyā to him was rather temporal than spatial.
Although Muhammad allegedly visited the otherworld, it is still consid-
ered as taking place in dunyā. The otherworld only becomes ākhira after
the Day of Judgement, and a visit to the otherworldly realm thus takes
place in dunyā. Everything before the Day of Judgement is dunyā by
definition.

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41 Kalābādhī’s Taʿarruf translated in Arberry, Doctrine of the Ṣūfīs, 27.

42 Ibid., 24–7.
43 For a comprehensive discussion of different Sufi approaches to ‘seeing’
God (Gott überall sehen [seeing God everywhere], Gott in allen Dingen
sehen [seeing God in all things], Nur Gott sehen [seeing only God], Alle
Dinge in Gott sehen [seeing all things in God]), see Gramlich, Der eine
Gott, 229–52. Gramlich confusingly translates different modes of vision
(Schau) that have separate names in Arabic (e.g. ruʾya, mushāhada) and
subtle differences in meaning, which makes it necessary to refer back to
the primary sources for a nuanced understanding of the modes of vision
he describes.
44 Ibid., 230.
45 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 2:269; Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 231.
46 Arthur J. Arberry, ed. and trans., The ‘Mawāqif’ and ‘Mukhāṭabāt’
of Muhammad ibn ʿAbdi ‘l-Jabbār al-Niffarī with Other Fragments
(Cambridge: EJW Gibb Memorial Trust, 1935), 18–20.
47 ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Niffarī, ‘Kitāb al-mawāqif’, in Trois oeuvres inédites de
mystiques musulmans: S̆ aqīq al-Balḫī, Ibn ʻAṭā, Niffarī, ed. Paul Nwyia
(Beirut: Dar El-Machreq, 1973), 203.
48 Translation from Reynold A. Nicholson, trans., ‘Kashf al-maḥjūb’: The
Oldest Persian Treatise on Sufism (London: Luzac & Co., 1959), 389. Note
the difference between the permanent state of vision in paradise, and
the impermanent character of the this-worldly vision.
49 Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 233.
50 See Michel Chodkiewicz, ‘The Vision of God according to Ibn ʿArabī’,
in Sufism: Love and Wisdom, eds Jean-Louis Michon and Roger Gaetani
(Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2006), 33–48.
51 Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 231.
52 Richard M. Frank, ‘Two Short Dogmatic Works of Abū l-Qāsim
al-Qushayrī, Part 1: Edition and Translation of Lumaʿ fī l-iʿtiqād’, MIDEO
15 (1982): 68.
53 Richard M. Frank, ‘Two Short Dogmatic Works of Abū l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī,
Part 2: Edition and Translation of al-Fuṣūl fī l-uṣūl’, MIDEO 16 (1983):
81.
54 Qushayrī’s Risāla, translated in Knysh, Epistle on Sufism, 362.
55 Böwering has explained the relative absence of visionary experience
in the early handbooks by pointing to the aural sense as the preferred

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mode of communication with God in classical Sufism. Böwering, ‘From

Word to Vision’, 208.
56 Qushayrī’s Risāla, translated in Knysh, Epistle on Sufism, 97­–9.
57 Dāwūdī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn, 1:349.
58 Abū Thābit Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī, ‘Jawāhir al-asrār’, Şehid Ali Pasa,
Istanbul, MS 1346.
59 Daylamī, ‘Jawāhir’, fols 4a–b, 5a.
60 Ibid., fol. 11a.
61 Ibid., fols 12a–b.
62 Ibid., fol. 11a. For hadith material and discussions on seeing God in one’s
sleep, see Chapter 3 note 54.
63 Daylamī, ‘Jawāhir’, fols 6a–b.
64 From among the scholars, he mentions Abū Ḥanīfa, Sufyān al-Thawrī,
al-Shāfiʿī, Mālik and their companions, as well as the people of hadith
like Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and Yaḥyā b. Maysar. Daylamī, ‘Jawāhir’, fol. 11a.
In another treatise, ʿUyūn al-maʿārif, he also deals with this question.
However, in this treatise he rebukes the ‘normal’ scholars (as opposed to
the Sufi elite) who deny this vision. He states the following: ‘Concerning
the vision of God in waking state in the this-worldly abode before death
by the eye of the inmost self (ʿayn al-sirr) and the light of faith, that
is a favor of God that He gives to whom He wills among His servants,
but with the eye of the heart, not with the eye of the head. And the
common people they all deny that, except those Sufis. They necessarily
confirm it because they see God, and few of their disciples believe them
because of their following of them. The majority of the people denying
it are those who do confirm it in the otherworldly abode with their eyes
staring. They are the Ḥanbalīs, the Ashʿarīs, the Karrāmiyya and their
likes of the people of ḥadīth. This is a big ignorance of them that con-
tradicts the foundations of the religion.’ Translated in Arberry, ‘Works
of al-Dailamī’, 51. The same passage can be found in Abū Thābit Shams
al-Dīn al-Daylamī, ‘Muhimmāt al-wāṣilīn’, Şehid Ali Pasha, Istanbul, MS
1346, fol. 206a..
65 Daylamī, ‘Jawāhir’, fol. 11b.
66 He names the illustrious and well-known early figures Dhū’l-Nūn
al-Miṣrī, Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī, al-Maʿrūf al-Karkhī, Sahl al-Tustarī,
al-Sarī al-Saqaṭī, al-Junayd, al-Ruwaym, al-Nūrī, Ibn ʿAṭāʾ, al-Shiblī, Abū
Bakr al-Wāsiṭī, Abū ʿAlī al-Rūdhabārī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥafīf al-Shīrāzī,

198

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Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz and Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Kharaqānī. Daylamī, ‘Jawāhir’,

fol. 11b. Whether all these authorities indeed claimed such experi-
ence is contestable. Note, for example, his mentioning of al-Junayd and
al-Kharrāz, which goes against the claims of al-Sarrāj and al-Kalābādhī
about them. See Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 229–32.
67 Daylamī, ‘Jawāhir’, fol. 11a.
68 Ibid., fol. 11a.
69 Ernst, Ruzbihan, 18.
70 Baqlī’s Kashf translated in Ernst, Unveiling of Secrets, 102–3.
71 Rūzbihān al-Baqlī, ‘Masālik al-tawḥīd’, in Quatre traités inédits de
Ruzbehân Baqlî Shîrâzî: textes arabes avec un commentaire, ed. Paul
Ballanfat (Tehran: Institut français de recherche en Iran, 1988), 177.
72 Ibid., 177.
73 Rūzbihān al-Baqlī, Kitāb Mashrab al-arwāḥ, ed. Nazif M. Hoca (Istanbul:
Edebiyat Fakültesi Matbaası, 1974), 195.
74 Ibid., 172.
75 Ballanfat, Quatre traités, 106, 141–4.
76 Ernst, Ruzbihan, 29–30, 35.
77 Ibid., 36.
78 Ernst translates this with ‘divine clothing’ or ‘clothing with divinity’,
Gramlich with ‘Verwirrung’, Ballanfat with ‘equivocité’, Corbin with
‘amphibolie’, which Ernst criticises as an ‘excessively abstract overtrans-
lation’. Ernst, Ruzbihan, 35, 104; Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 133; Ballanfat,
Quatre traités, 144; Henry Corbin, En Islam iranien: aspects spirituels et
philosophiques, vol. 3: Les fidèles d’amour: shî’isme et soufisme (Paris:
Gallimard, 1972), 18.
79 Baqlī, Mashrab, 119.
80 Ibid., 240.
81 This division of divine attributes is common in Sufi circles. Hujwīrī also
links the manifestation of God’s beauty with longing for the vision of
Him: ‘Those whose witness in gnosis is the beauty of God continually
long for vision (ruʾyat), while those whose witness is the majesty of God
continually reject their own qualities, and their hearts are in the state
of awe.’ Translation from Ernst, Ruzbihan, 45. See also Nicholson, Kashf
al-maḥjūb, 253. For an analytical discussion of the modes and forms
of divine manifestation (tajallī) in this work, see Ernst, Ruzbihan, 37,
44–79. See also Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 136–9; Paul Nwyia, ‘Waqāʾiʿ al-

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Shaykh Rūzbihān al-Baqlī al-Shīrāzī muqṭatafāt min kitāb Kašf al-asrār

wa-mukāšafāt al-anwār’, al-Mashriq 64 (1970): 385–406.
82 Ernst, Ruzbihan, 13, 49, 57–8.
83 Ernst, Unveiling of Secrets, 123.
84 Ernst, Unveiling of Secrets, 18, 23, 41, 52, 54, 58, 62, 71–2, 84, 110–11,
118, 121; Ernst, Ruzbihan, 44–65.
85 Ernst, Words of Ecstasy, 108.

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6
Arinī: Declined at the Boundary?

Introduction

In Chapter 3, we witnessed the centrality of the meeting with and

vision of God in the hereafter in Sufi eschatological imaginations; the
final boundary crossing is a crossing towards a visionary meeting with
God. In Chapter 4, we saw how the first boundary crossing, Adam’s
banishment from Paradise, was for some authors a deprivation of
this vision. This chapter is about an attempt to attain this vision of
God in this-worldly life: Moses’s request to see God (Q 7:143). It is my
contention that within some Sufi understandings this story signifies
an attempt to temporarily restore a paradisiacal state of vision in this
world; that is, the yearning for the vision of God promised in Paradise
was so strong that they were looking for ways to have a similar expe-
rience in the current abode.1 As we shall see, for some this took the
form of a visionary encounter, a foretaste of what was to come in the
hereafter. I will argue, however, that even for those who believed
in some form of this-worldly vision, the interest in the otherworldy
vision remained intact, because of the mere fact that the eschatologi-
cal encounter with God would be more perfect and eternal, instead of
the temporary and limited this-worldly experience.
This resonates with what has been suggested by other scholars

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of Sufism: the possibility of a direct experiential encounter with God

in this world motivates the disregard for eschatological themes other
than the meeting with and vision of God. Whereas the meeting (liqāʾ)
with God is normally an eschatological matter in Islamic theology,
some Sufis claimed such a strong this-worldly experience of this
encounter that they lost all interest in the world to come. Another
more intermediate attitude remained loyal to the idea that the ulti-
mate encounter between man and God can only occur in the world to
come. According to that attitude, meeting, vision and divine manifes-
tation are all in Paradise. An experience of a this-worldly encounter is
different from the otherworldly then: it is but a taste of what awaits
the believer in the hereafter.2
Corresponding with my findings in the earlier chapters, I suggest
that the dominance or absence of the theme of vision has been one
of the most significant differences between two tendencies within
Sufism: on the one hand, a tendency that stresses love and experi-
ential knowledge (maʿrifa) of God; on the other hand, a tendency
that stresses good character and religious discipline. Influenced
by doctrinal developments in theology, the idea of a this-worldly
vision also remained controversial within Sufism. This led to differ-
ent approaches to verse Q 7:143, varying from a negation of Moses’s
vision to a more complex line of thought focused on the modality
of the alleged vision. I will argue that, generally speaking, the ishārī
understandings of the verse remained within the boundaries of kalām
discussions of the same verse. Even authors who argued for the pos-
sibility of a this-worldly vision would structure the description of the
modality of these visionary experiences in such a way that it would
not contradict formal kalām positions.
There is another reason why the case of Moses is worth our while.
Islam, like Judaism, is generally portrayed as a religion in which God
is perceived aurally rather than visually. Believers who want to per-
ceive God in this world are encouraged to listen to God’s word being
recited, rather than make themselves an image of God.3 However, one
can argue whether this claim can be upheld in the case of Sufism
as well, and whether vision does not figure more prominently than

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audition in Sufi thought. Sufis themselves actively reflected on this

relation.4 In Islamic tradition, Moses is nicknamed kalīm Allāh, the
one to whom God has spoken. In some hadiths, Moses is contrasted
with Muhammad: while Moses heard God but was denied the vision
of Him, Muhammad allegedly saw God during his heavenly journey
(miʿrāj).5 These stories, then, formed models of archetypical experi-
ences of the divine along which Sufis defined, structured, embodied
and described their own alleged experiences.6 An analysis of com-
mentaries on the story of Moses, read together with commentaries
on the heavenly journey of Muhammad, is thus a good case study
to understand the status and hierarchy of the senses in the Sufi
imagination. In Sufism, themes related to both audition (samāʿ) and
vision have been strongly present. The technical vocabulary of Sufism
reflects this centrality of the visual sense. When we look at early Sufi
texts, such as the tafsīr of al-Sulamī or the early handbooks of the likes
of al-Sarrāj (d. 377/988), al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072) and al-Hujwīrī
(d. 465/1072), we see that a refined terminology was developed to
describe the experience of vision (mostly, but not always) of God. We
find terms such as ruʾya (vision), naẓar (gazing), ʿiyān and muʿāyana
(eye-vision), tajallī (manifestation), shuhūd and mushāhada (witness-
ing), and if we dig a little deeper we can even find discussion about
the truthfulness and possibility of these visionary experiences among
early Sufis.7 By means of the case studies of Moses and Muhammad
in the next two chapters, I shall try to shed new light on these dis-
cussions, mainly to understand if and how these two functioned as
exemplary figures for the claimed visual experiences of Sufis.

Arinī anẓur ilayk: Q 7:143 between Exegesis and Theology

Now that we have formed a broader understanding of the various

positions on the vision of God in the previous chapter, let us have
a closer look at the verse we are dealing with in this chapter and
its role in the debates on the vision of God. The verse is part of a
series of larger narratives in Sūrat al-Aʿrāf relating to the struggle
of Moses with Pharaoh and the subsequent exodus of Moses and his
people from Egypt. The verse describes a scene that takes place when

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Moses leaves his people behind for a retreat of forty nights, giving his
brother Aaron temporary leadership over them (Q 7:142). The verse
reads as follows:

When Moses came to Our appointed time and his Lord spoke to him,
he said, ‘My Lord, show [Yourself] to me, [so] I [can] look at You.’
He said, ‘You shall not (lan) see Me, but look to the mountain. If it
remains in its place you shall see Me.’ When his Lord manifested
Himself to the mountain He made it into rubble, and Moses fell
unconscious. And when he stood up, he said: ‘Glory to You, I repent
to You, and I am the first of the believers.’8

Although theologians generally agreed that the verse implies that Moses
did not see God, they disagreed on the possibility of the vision. For oppo-
nents of the idea of a vision of God, this verse was used as a confirmation
of their dialectic conclusion that God cannot be seen. Proponents of the
idea had to find a way to interpret this verse in such a way that it did
not categorically rule out the vision of God. A number of issues gener-
ally concerned theological exegetes of this verse: the reason for God’s
refusal to show Himself to Moses; the meaning of the future negation
particle lan; the modality of God’s manifestation (tajallī) to the moun-
tain; the reason for Moses’s repentance and his declaration of belief.
The Muʿtazila saw an obvious confirmation of the impossibility
of seeing God in the verse. They were, however, confronted with the
question of how the impeccability of prophets should be reconciled
with the request from Moses. The Muʿtazilī exegete al-Zamakhsharī
(d. 538/1134) offers a fair representation of typical Muʿtazilī concerns
when explaining the verse in his Qurʾan commentary al-Kashshāf.
After having confirmed that Moses heard God’s created speech, a typi-
cal Muʿtazilī standpoint, he states that by his request arinī (show me)
Moses asked to be made capable of seeing God (ijʿalnī mutamakkinan
min ruʾyatika). On the question of how a knowledgeable and impec-
cable prophet could ask something that he knew not to be possible, he
responds that it was only a rhetorical question to reproach and silence
the insolent from among his people who had provokingly asked to see
God on several occasions (Q 2:55; 4:153).9

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For al-Ashʿarī, the verse was a confirmation of the possibility of

the vision of God rather than a negation, despite Moses being refused
the vision. The fact that the impeccable prophet Moses requested to
see God is a proof that it is possible in itself. As an impeccable prophet
with proper knowledge of God, he would not ask for something that
was impossible, and he would never falsely assume that God could be
seen. He also holds God’s statement that Moses would see God if the
mountain remained stable to be a proof for the possibility of seeing
God. God would not make something impossible conditional upon
something possible, al-Ashʿarī reasons. Since the mountain remaining
stable is theoretically possible, so also must be the vision of God.10 The
particle lan, indicating a negation in the future tense (you shall not),
did not represent a universal denial, according to the Ashʿarīs. What
was meant was that Moses would not see God in his present life.11
Al-Māturīdī dedicates quite some space to the verse in his Qurʾan
commentary and takes it as an opportunity to disclose his ideas on the
ruʾya controversy alongside the context of this particular verse as well.
First, he refutes some Muʿtazilī positions on the verse, for example
that Moses did not request the vision for himself, but to reproach his
people. He considers this far-fetched and believes that Moses would
have formulated his request differently if that had been his goal. His
own argument in favour of the possibility of the vision is similar to
al-Ashʿarī’s: Moses as a prophet could not have been so ignorant as
to ask something concerning God that was impossible. His request is
a proof of the possibility of the vision.12 In the chapter on the vision
of God in his eschatological treatise, Ḥādī al-arwāḥ, Ibn al-Qayyim
mentions seven arguments, mostly linguistic, some lightly dialectic,
that can be considered as representative of the Ḥanbalī traditionist
standpoint, and are very close to the Ashʿarī and Māturīdī arguments:
(1) Moses would never ask something that was impossible; (2) God
did not disapprove of his question; had it been impossible, He would
have disapproved of it; (3) God responded with ‘You shall not see Me’,
not with ‘You cannot see Me’ or ‘I am not seen’ or ‘to see Me is impossi-
ble’; this shows that God can be seen, but that humans do not have the
strength for it in this-worldly life; (4) if the mountain could not bear

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God’s manifestation, then a human in this life surely could not; (5) it is
possible that God would have left the mountain in its place; He would
not have linked something impossible to something possible; (6) that
God manifested to the mountain is a proof of the possibility of vision
in itself; (7) Moses could hear God directly; if hearing is possible, then
vision must be possible a fortiori; Moses asked God to see Him after
he had heard Him; by hearing Him he realised it was possible to see
Him as well.13
To understand how the Sufi commentaries are embedded in their
broader religious context, we must once again look at the major com-
mentaries written by the school of Nishapur. What becomes clear
from them is that no exegete would explain the verse in such a way
that any type of vision, either with the eye or with the heart, actu-
ally took place. Most of the aforementioned arguments appear in one
way or another in these commentaries as well. As al-Māwardī’s com-
mentary shows, Muʿtazilī ideas were still current in Nishapur and
the controversy over ruʾya had sociopolitical significance in the strife
between different scholarly factions and their patron networks. It was
not merely an intellectual issue.
Al-Thaʿlabī shies away from the explicit theological reasoning of
the commentators discussed above, and confines himself to implicit
theology by quoting a score of earlier exegetes who all stated that
the negation lan tarānī (You shall not see Me) applies only to this
world, but that God will be seen in the hereafter. Who sees God in this
world will die because the experience is too overwhelming to bear.
He lets Moses respond to God’s refusal in a way that resonates with
a Sufi motif of love and longing.14 Hearing the speech of God aroused
an uncontrollable yearning in Moses for the vision of Him: ‘I heard
Your speech and long to look at You. To look at You and to die is more
beloved to me than to live and not seeing You.’ 15 Here the visual is
given a higher rank in the sensory hierarchy than the aural. The audi-
tion of God is only a ‘prelude’, as it were, for the true enjoyment of the
lover of God: the vision of Him. The passion to reach this vision is so
strong that it is unbearable to wait until the hereafter, to the extent
that Moses was even ready to die for it.16

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Al-Māwardī has a remarkably short commentary on the verse

compared with the other exegetes so far considered, and it is not
used to polemicise about the question of the vision of God. A fair
overview is given of the positions apparently current in Nishapur,
with a slight emphasis on the Muʿtazilī positions.17 Without prob-
lematising or choosing sides, he summarises three positions, the first
two being Muʿtazilī positions: (1) that Moses wanted to silence the
insolent among his people who requested to see God; (2) that he knew
that it was impossible through reasoning, but that he wanted to have
necessary knowledge of it, that is, confirmation by a divine revela-
tion; (3) that the position transmitted by al-Rabīʿ, al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī
and al-Suddī holds that vision in this world is possible and thus the
request by Moses was as well. As for al-Māwardī’s own view, that the
mountain could not bear the vision, he holds to be proof that a human
could not bear it either. On the modality of God’s manifestation (tajallī)
to the mountain, he mentions three positions: (1) that He appeared
through his signs (āyāt) that He made occur in the mountain to show
to the other mountains; (2) that He only showed from His heavenly
kingdom (malakūt) what would make the mountain crumble, because
the world would not have remained if He had shown the full kingdom
of Heaven (malakūt al-samāʾ); (3) that He only showed the amount
of a little finger of His throne, or that He showed His command (amr)
to the mountain, which was enough to crush it. On the repentance of
Moses he again mentions several options, some Muʿtazilī, some Sunni:
he repented for asking without awaiting permission; he repented for
believing that a this-worldly vision was possible; he repented as a
manner of praise of God, as is the habit of believers.18 He does not
mention anything about the vision in the hereafter at all, nor take
a conclusive position on the issue of the vision of God: he seems to
be on his guard, perhaps in an attempt to shun controversy. From
this we may deduce that the controversy over the vision of God in
Nishapur was animated, and that al-Māwardī did not mention it to
avoid a direct confrontation with his colleagues and the authorities
in the highly polarised and politicised scholarly climate between the
Muʿtazilīs and Ashʿarīs in Nishapur.

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Al-Wāḥidī is a typical representative of Ashʿarī readings of the

verse, proving his theological conviction that the vision is possible
by focusing on the linguistic particularities of the verse. He stresses
that Moses requested to see God and nothing else. From a linguistic
analysis of the verse he concludes that the verse cannot be inter-
preted otherwise. He subsequently quotes the Ashʿarī position that
Moses’s request itself is a proof of the possibility of the vision of God.
In addition, God’s answer ‘You shall not see Me’ is a proof of this. Were
it impossible to see God, He would have answered ‘I cannot be seen’.19
‘You shall not see Me’ pertains only to this world; in the hereafter,
God will be seen. It is also a proof that Moses requested the vision for
himself, not for his people as some Muʿtazilīs believed. Otherwise God
would have answered with ‘They shall not see Me’.20
In conclusion, we can state that there is great diversity in the
interpretation of the verse and in the theological arguments either in
favour of or against the possibility of this-worldly vision. Although all
seem to have agreed that indeed Moses did not see God, not everybody
used the verse to rule out the possibility of a this-worldly vision. On
the contrary, for some the fact that Moses as an impeccable prophet
requested the vision is considered the most important proof that
God can indeed be seen in this world. Let us now have a look at Sufi
explanations of the verse and how these broader theological issues
reverberate in them.

Polyvalence: The Early Sufi Readings in al-Sulamī

The commentary that al-Sulamī offers on Q 7:143 is remarkably more

extensive than on the verses in the rest of his work. This shows that
already in early Sufism this particular verse played an important role
in legitimising a sensory relation to God, both auditory and visionary,
taking Moses as an exemplary mystic, thus provoking more commen-
tary. What also catches the eye is the relative dominance of ‘ecstatic’
readings of the verse and the more cryptic and mystical nature of the
presented meanings than elsewhere: Moses apparently represented
a mystical model of a more ecstatic and esoteric kind. In addition, the
early authorities quoted by al-Sulamī show an interesting degree of

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different perspectives on the verse, all of which al-Sulamī mentions

on an equal footing: the commentary is truly polyvalent.
The structure of the commentary can be divided into a couple
of stages, corresponding with the structure of the verse. First, on
the verse preceding the request for the vision, al-Sulamī offers some
quotes that refer to the forty-day seclusion that Moses underwent
before reaching the elevated state in which he requests the vision.
Second, the modality of the speech of God to Moses is described, as
well as the state that Moses was perceived to be in when he received
the speech. Third, Moses’s request to see God following the hear-
ing of His speech is discussed. The passage ends, as does the verse
itself, with God’s manifestation to the mountain, Moses’s fainting and
repentance.
This structure of seclusion, speech and request of vision also
determines the sayings attributed to Jaʿfar on the verse. These say-
ings figure most prominently in al-Sulamī’s redaction and therefore
deserve some extra attention. Jaʿfar denies the vision of God by Moses,
and stresses that vision of God does not occur in this world. He does
not try to find an exegetical solution for the refusal uttered in the
verse, and accepts it as a given fact. However, Moses seems to have
come close in his mystical state, transcending his human form in the
process of receiving God’s speech. According to Jaʿfar, Moses’s forty-
day seclusion led to his withdrawal from his usual form (rasm) and
boundary (ḥadd); he was elevated beyond his human condition. In
that state of being outside his human condition, he received God’s
speech. Jaʿfar holds this to be proof that the attainment of the way sta-
tions of Lordship (manāzil al-rubūbiyya) can take place only when one
is outside of one’s human form (rusūm al-bashariyya). The reception
of God’s speech also took place in a concept of time that was different
from the time to which God had subdued the rest of creation. In this
state, Moses was himself the medium of the speech; God made the
speech ‘rest’ on Moses and He spoke to him through his inner state
(nafsiyya) and servanthood (ʿubūdiyya), ‘through the deepest reali-
ties of his praiseworthy qualities’.21 This experience of hearing God’s
speech was so strong that Moses’s selfhood disappeared. Moreover,

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as a consequence of the speech, nothing would ever grow or live on

the mountain again. Jaʿfar uses the verse to establish a hierarchy
between the prophets: Muhammad is higher in the hierarchy than
Moses because he had a more direct encounter with God’s attribute
of speech. Whereas Moses heard God through himself, and thus heard
his own attribute of speech rather than God’s, Muhammad did hear
God’s attribute of speech directly. This explains, states Jaʿfar, the dif-
ferent locations on which they were granted the speech: while Moses
heard God at Mount Sinai, Muhammad reached as far as the ‘lote tree
of the utmost boundary’ (sidrat al-muntahā), the highest place of crea-
tion, and the ultimate boundary between Creator and created.22
This experience of hearing God, and of seeing the apparition
(khayāl) of His speech in his heart, aroused the desire in Moses to
see God and made him utter his request. To Jaʿfar, it is clear why
God refused this: Moses was incapable of seeing God because he was
transient ( fānin) while God is subsistent (bāqin). The subsistent is
unattainable for the transient, and Moses would not have been able to
bear the vision, with death being the result. To be able to see God with
ocular vision (muʿāyana), one first has to reach a state of subsistence
(baqāʾ) by one’s Lord, a state apparently not granted to Moses. God
therefore distracted Moses by having him look at the mountain. The
mountain, then, received knowledge of beholding God (ʿilm al-iṭṭilāʿ),
by which it was scattered.23 It ceased to exist by the mere mentioning
of the beholding of God, while Moses fainted on seeing the mountain
scattered. When Moses regained consciousness and declared that he
was ‘the first of the believers’, according to Jaʿfar he meant that he was
the first to believe that God is not seen in this world.24
Jaʿfar is not the only authority that al-Sulamī mentions. Regarding
the first stage, Abū Bakr b. Ṭāhir al-Abharī (d. c. 330/941­–2) points
out that the forty days mentioned in Q 7:142 (‘We appointed Moses
thirty nights and completed it with ten more’) were a period of fasting
with the intention of speaking with God. It was a special God-given
blessed time (awqāt al-karāma) in which Moses did not become
hungry because the anticipation of standing before his Lord made
him forget about eating and drinking.25 An anonymous source ‘from

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among the later generations’ depicts the meeting between Moses and
God as a meeting between lovers. The promises of lovers are a pleas-
ure even when broken.26
After that the focus shifts to the nature of Moses’s meeting with
his Lord and His speaking to Moses. As in the sayings of Jaʿfar, it
becomes clear that the other authorities also deem the absolute seclu-
sion of Moses from the rest of creation to have been necessary for him
to qualify for this auditory meeting. Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz points out
how God spoke to Moses only in the deepest of the night and made
him invisible for all other conscious beings so that the speech could be
exclusively for Moses. The speech of God, explains al-Qurashī, comes
to Moses through himself. Had He spoken to him ‘in the full scope
of His greatness’, that is through Himself instead of through Moses,
Moses would have been annihilated. Al-Qurashī thus shows great
similarity to Jaʿfar’s ideas on the matter.27 Al-Ḥusayn also describes
the process of seclusion from the rest of creation, of Moses transcend-
ing his human form and receiving God’s speech:

He [God] removed [the sense of] temporal and spatial order from
him, and he came to God according to what He invited him to, and
what He wanted him for, and what He placed upon him, and He
brought him forth from Himself, and made Himself apparent to him,
by taking away every pain, energy, challenge, difficulties and efforts.
When nothing remained for him by which he could be hindered,
he was lifted to the station of [face-to-face] encounter (muwājaha)
and conversation (mukhāṭaba), and He made his tongue loose for
request and demand.28

Al-Wāsiṭī also holds that Moses disappeared from his normal human
nature when receiving God’s speech and being in his immediate pres-
ence. When he realised the sweetness of God’s speech, he requested
His unveiling.29
Yet another quote by an unidentified authority similarly describes
how God singled Moses out from creation to receive his speech. This
unidentified author also makes it lead to the request of the vision,
which is then subsequently granted, albeit indirectly. Because of

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Moses’s request to God elsewhere in the Qurʾan (Q 20:25­–6) to widen

his breast and ease his affairs, God made him reach the highest sta-
tion. This station is coming to God through God (al-mujīʾ ilā Allāh
bi’Llāh), a state in which all other states disappear from the subject.
This state, the anonymous author holds, is what is meant by ‘When
Moses came to Our appointed time and his Lord spoke to him’. Only
in this elevated state, the highest and most honourable state even, did
Moses hear God’s speech directly, invisible ‘from every eye, seeing
and being seen, and from every form, being and coming forth, except
for the one speaking and the one being spoken to’. In this state, hear-
ing what was never heard before, he made a request never made
before: to see God. The subsequent denial of the vision in the Qurʾanic
verse, followed by the imperative to look at the mountain, is not seen
as a denial per se. In the perspective of this anonymous author, a form
of vision had already been granted before his request, through crea-
tion: once Moses returned from the highest state he was in, he saw
none other than God before him, and saw Him in everything that could
be looked and gazed at ( fī kulli manẓūr wa-mubṣar). When Moses
experienced this indirect vision, he requested that God show Himself
so that he could look on Him. It did not matter to Moses in what form
God showed Himself, because he would not see anything other than
God in front of him, and God would not leave him anymore after this
state that he had reached.30 This is a good example of the state of
‘Gott vor Augen haben’ mentioned by Gramlich. Thus, by imagining
the vision as a vision through creation, the official dogma that God is
not seen in this world remains intact; the claimed experience of the
mystic does not exceed the boundaries of his tradition and is in a way
still conditioned by it.
Al-Sulamī continues with the next part of the verse that contains
the actual request and refusal: ‘He said, “My Lord, show [Yourself]
to me, [so] I [can] look at You.” He said, “You shall not see Me, but
look to the mountain.”’ In the commentary that follows, he does not
name a source and also does not imply that it is a quote of an anony-
mous source; it could very well be one of the very few instances
in his entire commentary when he gives his own opinion, although

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this cannot be verified. The passage explains that only the hearts of
the knowers (ʿārifīn) that have attained experiential knowledge of
God, supported with the lights of God-granted miracles (karāma)
are capable of carrying and enduring the witnessing (mushāhada)
of God. This is a very exceptional state that human beings cannot
normally endure. The author therefore reassures his readers that the
hearts that have reached this state of witnessing God are in fact not
witnessing through themselves; it is through God Himself that they
endure the witnessing of God and it is God who carries their hearts at
that moment.31 This corresponds with Jaʿfar’s commentary in which
he states that to be able to see God one must first reach a state of
subsistence (baqāʾ) in God; something that is transient cannot reach
the subsistent. Here something similar is proposed: when the heart
witnesses God, the heart is under God’s complete control, such that
the heart is no longer an independent actor. It is God Himself who
witnesses God:

Subsequently, when those hearts have carried Me, and have endured
the witnessing of Me, then I am the one carrying Me, none other,
because through Me he carried Me, and through Me he endured the
witnessing of Me. There is no witnessing of God except for Him.32

A similar view is expressed by an anonymous quote, be it not through

subsistence in God, but through annihilation ( fanāʾ) in God. When
Moses requested the vision, God answered that he ‘shall not’ see Him
while in human form (bashariyya). Only in a state of annihilation
would Moses have been capable of receiving the manifestation of God.
Moses then requested his selfhood and humanity to be annihilated
(afninī ʿannī wa-ʿan bashariyyatī). Therefore, God made him faint and
then manifested to him.33
For al-Ḥusayn, God’s refusal to show Himself was indeed a refusal.
He points out how God comforted Moses by saying ‘but look at the
mountain’ so that he did not depart in a state of desperate yearn-
ing for God, but had something to tranquillise him a bit. Al-Wāsiṭī
stresses the temporary character of God’s refusal: it was refused for
now, but not for eternity. When God manifests Himself, it is only by a

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measure of His attributes, it is not His complete essence by which He

manifests.34
Al-Sulamī thus presents a plurality of opinions that show a rich
variety of approaches to the verse, ranging from denials of the vision
by Moses to an embrace of indirect modes of vision. It has become
clear that by the time of al-Sulamī it was already a matter of contro-
versy, and different positions among mystics were present from the
early formative period of Sufism. The hierarchy between audition and
vision was already established by the time of al-Sulamī as well: the
longing for the vision followed upon hearing God and so is deemed
a higher form of contact with the divine, more difficult to attain and
demanding a higher spiritual state.

From Sobriety to Intoxication: Al-Qushayrī Reading Moses

As described before, to al-Qushayrī it is clear that the vision of God is

only granted to the believers in the otherworld. There is no vision in
this world. Consequently, in his commentary he denies the vision of
God by Moses: the allusive (ishārī) reading of the verse never escapes
a solid Ashʿarī framework. However, it would be incorrect to say that
al-Qushayrī’s reading of the verse is a ‘sober’ Sufi reading. Where his
reading of Adam’s banishment was dominated by ‘sober’ Sufi peda-
gogical considerations, his reading of the request of Moses takes a
more ‘intoxicated’ turn, interwoven with motives of love mysticism.
This becomes clear from the very beginning of the passage, in the
language with which al-Qushayrī describes the state in which Moses
went to his appointment with God: ‘Moses came in the way of those
yearning [for God], the way of those madly in love, Moses came with-
out Moses, Moses came and nothing of Moses remained for Moses.’35
For al-Qushayrī Moses represents the highest state of piety: ‘The one
yearning the most strongly of all creation for the Beloved is the most
near to the Beloved, this is Moses (peace be upon him).’36
On one point al-Qushayrī diverges from a typical Ashʿarī position.
Whereas most Ashʿarī theologians would state that Moses would not
have asked for something that was impossible, al-Qushayrī considers
the request of the vision of God as a sort of slip of the tongue. He cites

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a number of anonymous authorities – not mentioned by al-Sulamī – to

stress the idea that Moses’s request was a slip of the tongue that
occurred because he was overtaken by a state of ecstasy (wajd) and
intoxication (sukr) after hearing the speech of God. The speech alone
did not satisfy him and he wanted more: ‘When people drink more
and more, their thirst increases, and when people are increasingly
enthralled by love, they yearn more and more.’37 So overwhelmed was
he by God’s speech, relates al-Qushayrī, that he forgot all the things he
intended to say to God on behalf of his people and could only utter,
‘Show [Yourself] to me, [so] I [can] look at You.’38
In addition, the refusal by God is interpreted by invoking the sym-
bolism of an ecstatic yearning. The refusal of the vision hurt Moses,
and to look at the mountain was difficult for him, because if he could
not look at God, he did not want to see anything else. Yet still he
obeyed God and thereafter, when back in a state of sobriety (ṣaḥw), he
repented. This repentance was the best replacement for the vision.39
Al-Qushayrī does not pass an explicit judgement on whether a state
of sobriety is to be preferred over intoxication, and the fact that a
prophet apparently reached this level of ecstasy most likely means
that he did not reject it. But the fact that he closes the narrative with
the repentance instead of the vision might be a hint that he suggested
to his readers, most probably his direct pupils, to strive for that which
is attainable for all believers in this world. For a moment al-Qushayrī
shows another side, but in the end he returns to the sober Sufi peda-
gogue that we know so well from the larger part of his commentary.

Vision of the Heart as a Foretaste of Paradise: Maybudī

Maybudī’s conventional commentary (separated from the Sufi com-

mentary) gives a clear and unequivocal answer to the question of
the vision: it was forbidden for Moses to see God in this world, and
he could attain it only after death. Maybudī cites several well-known
traditions to support this and mentions the most important theologi-
cal arguments as to why the vision is not possible in this world, but
only in the hereafter. He also defends the Sunni position against the
Muʿtazilīs with the typical arguments discussed earlier.40 Then the

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Sufi commentary neatly follows the viewpoint that the vision was not
granted to Moses. But in the case of Maybudī this does not lead to a
sober understanding of the story either. He chooses to interpret the
story in the language of love mysticism: Moses became drunk from
the potion of love in his unique aural encounter with God.
Maybudī contrasts Moses’s meeting with his Lord with an ear-
lier meeting at the burning bush. The meeting at the burning bush
(Q 28:29) was a journey of seeking, while the meeting at this moun-
tain was one of joy. In this meeting, Moses came without a sense
of selfhood, having lost himself in his inmost self (sirr). Drunk from
the potion of love that he drank from the cup of sanctity, the words
‘Show [Yourself] to me’ boiled up inside him. Burning from having
heard God’s speech in a state of intimate speech (munājāt), still drunk
from ‘the wine of yearning’ (sharāb-i shawq), he finally exclaimed,
‘Show [Yourself] to me, [so] I [can] look at You.’ After this exclama-
tion, the angels rebuked him. They pointed out that a lowly creature
like Moses, a child of menstruating women, created from dust and
water, was not qualified to see his Lord. They claimed that there was
no chance for a created being to achieve communion (wiṣāl) with the
ever-existing God. The angels were then commanded to leave Moses
alone, since Moses could not really help having uttered this, having
lost all restraint in his state of being in love.41
Annabel Keeler has suggested in her study of Maybudī’s commen-
tary that the stories of Moses and Muhammad serve to establish a hier-
archy between the prophets: shortcomings and weaknesses of earlier
prophets are there to show the elevated rank of Muhammad.42 Keeler
mentions a set of quotes related to the vision of God to support this.
Maybudī states that in this life ‘lovers will have only a glimpse of the
lights of those secrets and a whiff of the perfume of those traces. Only
Muhammad had the capacity for direct witnessing (ʿiyān).’43 Other
servants, including Moses, have to wait for the hereafter: ‘Today there
can only be a witnessing of the heart (mushāhada-yi dil), tomorrow
there will be direct witnessing with the eyes (muʿāyana-yi chashm).’44
The true vision will come only after death and it is this hope that will
make death bearable for the believer: ‘Everyone hopes for something,

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and the hope of the mystic is for the vision [of God] (dīdār). Everyone
loves life, and death is difficult for them, but the mystic needs death
for the sake of vision.’45

Vision through Annihilation (Fanāʾ): Al-Daylamī

Like the authorities quoted by al-Sulamī, al-Daylamī first stresses the

importance of the forty-day seclusion and fast as a preparation for
reaching the right state to speak with God. He points out how the Sufi
practice of a forty-day fast is based on this verse. Al-Daylamī follows a
line similar to the Sufi authorities of al-Sulamī that this seclusion and
fasting brings Moses to a state outside his human condition so that he
is able to reach communion (wuṣūl) with God. Once outside his human
condition during his forty-day fast, Moses does not feel hunger or
thirst because these are characteristics of humans and animals, char-
acteristics that he has surpassed. Al-Daylamī holds God’s speech with
Moses to be an outward speech; different from the inward speech
or intimate conversation (munājāt) that God’s friends (awliyāʾ) have
with God through their inmost selves (sirr). He quotes al-Sulamī’s
citation of Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz to stress that Moses was singled out
from the rest of creation when he received this speech.46
On the issue of this-worldly vision, al-Daylamī stays within the
boundaries of the theoretical positions embraced in his treatise
Jawāhir al-asrār: the physical vision was denied, but a spiritual
vision may have been granted to Moses. He cites several quotes from
al-Sulamī’s commentary negating a vision by Moses (Ibn ʿAṭāʾ,
al-Ḥusayn and Jaʿfar). The vision that Moses requested from God was
a vision with the physical eye, as opposed to a vision by the eye of
the heart and the inmost self (sirr) that is granted to all prophets and
friends (awliyāʾ) of God. With the physical eye, they cannot see God
in this world. This is also the meaning of God’s refusal ‘You shall not
see Me’; following the conventional interpretation, al-Daylamī holds
this to pertain to this world, not to the hereafter. He states that Moses
repented for asking to see God while God did not want him to see
Him. Had he known that, he would not have asked. The meaning of
‘I am first of the believers’ is that ‘no one sees You except whom You

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will and with whom You are content seeing You’.47 A last anonymous
quote, not mentioned by al-Sulamī, explains that Moses was allowed
only to speak with God, not to see Him, because vision is emanation of
the essence (ishrāq al-dhāt), while speech is merely one of His attrib-
utes. Humans have ways to attain His attributes, while God’s essence
is unattainable to them.48
Al-Daylamī disagrees with this and does not rule out a this-worldly
vision of God’s essence: ‘I hold that the vision of the essence [of God]
(ruʾyat al-dhāt) is not impossible for the servants. Impossible is to
have an encompassing vision, knowledge and its likes.’ So the vision of
God is possible, albeit in an imperfect way: the human faculties or the
human mind cannot encompass God. In favour of such a non-physical
vision of God’s essence, he mentions one quote from al-Sulamī’s com-
mentary that can be interpreted as an endorsement of a non-physical
vision by Moses, in a state of annihilation ( fanāʾ):

When the vision was requested, he said: ‘You shall not see Me in
your human condition (bashariyya).’ So he said: ‘Annihilate me and
my human condition.’ So He annihilated him, and God was without
parallel in His essence (dhāt), and He manifested Himself to Moses
in his unconscious condition . . . He annihilated him until he saw
Him, then He brought him back to His attributes.49

Al-Daylamī shows his sympathy to this idea of a vision through

­annihilation: ‘This is not far-fetched to me.’50

Indirect Vision through God’s Attributes and Acts: Rūzbihān

Moses appears a couple of times in Rūzbihān’s visionary autobiogra-

phy Kashf al-asrār. For example, in one of his visionary descriptions,
he relates:

I sought God (glory be to him) at dawn on this night, and he spoke to

me as he spoke to Moses there [at Mount Sinai], and several moun-
tains split open. I saw in Mount Sinai a window in the mountain itself
on the east side. The Truth (glory be to him) manifested himself
to me from the window, and said, ‘Thus I caused myself to appear

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to Moses.’ I saw Moses as though he saw the Most high, and he fell
from the mountain, intoxicated, to the foot of the mountain.51

This description shows that according to Rūzbihān God did indeed

visually appear to Moses, albeit not directly, but through a window
in the mountain. In another vision, he describes how God descended
Mount Sinai in the dress of a great Sufi master, whose wrath made
the mountain melt. Subsequently, He disappeared, reappeared, disap-
peared again and so on, to finally say ‘Thus I did to Moses.’52 Rūzbihān
thus claimed to be able to experience the speech and vision of God
Himself, as Moses did. Moses has become the prophetic model for his
own experience.
What does this mean for his interpretation of the Moses story in
his Qurʾan commentary? Rūzbihān’s tafsīr is the lengthiest in terms
of the commentary on this particular verse. It is, again, by far the
most difficult to understand and apparently also the most ambiguous
on the question of the vision. Rūzbihān creates complex solutions to
the problem of the vision and offers a couple of different modes of
vision.
Like al-Qushayrī and Maybudī, Rūzbihān states that the request
of the vision emanated from a state of intoxication, ecstasy and love
evoked by the experience of hearing God. He cites the same anony-
mous quotes as al-Qushayrī to this extent.53 But he goes even further
than that. The request for the vision of God follows on not only from
an auditory encounter, but also from a different kind of indirect vision
of God. He states:

Had he not seen Him on the station of clothing (iltibās) in the vision
of every atom from the intellect (al-ʿaql) to the earth (al-tharā)
from the reflection of existence, he would not have found the way to
request the witnessing of the unadulterated (al-ṣirf). Therefore, the
vision (al-ruʾya) had become necessary.54

This understanding of a vision through creation preceding the request

of a direct vision of God’s essence comes close to the statement of the
earlier discussed anonymous authority from al-Sulamī’s commentary,

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who also stated that the request of vision followed on from a vision of
God through creation. Rūzbihān quotes this saying verbatim:

He saw God in everything visible to him . . . and when these states

were realised for him, he said, ‘My Lord show Yourself to me so
that I can look at You, because in everything seen I return to you’,
meaning, ‘Show me what You wish, and I will not see any other than
You in front of me.’55

He presents yet another mode of seeing God. While Moses was

still Moses – that is, when not in a state of annihilation ( fanāʾ) – he
was not able to see God in terms of His quality of eternity. Therefore,
God commanded him to look to a created thing like himself, that is,
the mountain:

God had made the mountain a reflection of His action ( fiʿl), and He
manifested (tajalla) Himself in terms of His attribute (ṣifa) to His
specific act ( fiʿl khāṣṣ), and subsequently to the mountain. Moses
saw the beauty of eternity ( jamāl al-qidam) in the reflection of the
mountain and fainted, because he reached his goal commensurate
with his state. Had He manifested Himself to Moses in His pure form
(ṣirfan), Moses would have become fine dust. And had He manifested
Himself to the mountain in His pure form, the mountain would have
burnt to the seventh earth. Rather, He manifested Himself to the
mountain in terms of the essence of greatness (ʿayn al-ʿaẓama) and
the sublimity of eternity (subuḥāt al-azaliyya).56

Moses could not bear the vision of God’s pure essence, and so was
diverted to a vision of the reflection of God’s attributes and acts. Even
that made him faint.
Rūzbihān offers more sayings like this, not only focused on Moses,
but making this a general rule for believers: some of the believers
have reached such a high state that they see none but God in creation,
from the throne to the earth (min al-ʿarsh ilā al-tharā). His beauty and
majesty are manifest in creation and reach the eyes through the heart.
He quotes ‘one of those madly in love’ as having said: ‘I did not look at
anything, without seeing God in it.’57 This comes close to the concept

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of tajallī as later developed in the schools of Ibn al-ʿArabī and Najm

al-Dīn al-Kubrā not long after Rūzbihān.
Another mode of vision that Rūzbihān presents is a vision with
the eye of the heart and spirit. God manifests Himself to them with His
beauty and majesty. The heart can bear this manifestation, because it
is created from the light of His angelic realm (malakūt) and imprinted
with the light of His realm of might ( jabarūt).58 He connects this mode
of vision with a verse from Sūrat al-Najm: ‘The heart did not lie about
what it saw’ (Q 53:11), which in tafsīr literature is considered to be
about the miʿrāj of Muhammad. Moses, he states, requested the vision
with his naked eye, while his eye was veiled from his heart. Therefore,
he could not directly see God. The heart of Muhammad, however, was
one with his eye when he witnessed the beauty of God. Therefore, he
saw God with the heart and the eye.59 This way he establishes a hier-
archy between the vision of the heart by Moses and the vision of the
naked eye by Muhammad in the night of his ascension; Muhammad’s
vision was more complete, corresponding with his higher rank as a
prophet and mystical model.

Conclusion

Again we have witnessed how relatively confined the genealogy

of the Sufi commentary tradition was in this particular period.
Although quotes from al-Sulamī’s redaction, and to some extent from
al-Qushayrī’s, do indeed reappear in later commentaries, they do not
determine the course and content of the later commentaries per se.
Their new ideas are not just given against the backdrop of already
existing opinions; there is a great deal of new, independent material
in each of the later commentaries, and the authors were clearly not
afraid to be inventive and introduce new ideas and concepts indepen-
dently of the existing traditions, and also relatively independently of
the conventional text-based and theological tradition. This tradition
is hardly quoted (with the exception of Maybudī, albeit in a separate
category in his commentary) and there are no explicit references to
it. However, we have seen that the Sufi understanding of the verse
never really escapes the theological framework of the authors: there

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is a constant implicit presence of these conventional understandings

of the verse.
One idea all commentaries do seem to share, albeit with some
differences, is this: before Moses had reached the point of requesting
the vision, he had reached a state in which he had lost his sense of
self or had surpassed his human condition. However, on the question
of whether the vision was actually subsequently granted, and if so in
which mode, there is a great deal of difference. Only two of the com-
mentaries categorically deny Moses’s vision of God: al-Qushayrī and
Maybudī. Neither of these two included in their commentaries the
quotations from al-Sulamī’s redaction that imply a vision by annihila-
tion ( fanāʾ). On the exact reasons, a definitive answer cannot be given.
It may have something to do with the fact that their commentaries
are the only ones that do not exclusively contain commentary by the
hermeneutical method of allusion (ishāra), but include conventional
text-based and theological commentary as well. However, the fact that
Maybudī and al-Qushayrī did not shy away from using ecstatic vocab-
ulary and symbolism shows that the incorporation of conventional
material does not necessarily ‘force’ a more sober understanding of
Sufism. Maybudī could express himself quite freely in the language
of a more ecstatic love mysticism, probably because that space was
created by strictly separating the ‘outward’ (ẓāhir) from the ‘inward’
(bāṭin) in his commentary. It is perhaps because in al-Qushayrī’s
tafsīr the two strands are more or less interwoven and not clearly
separated that he could not move too far away from the boundaries of
conventional understandings of the verse, and ends his narrative on a
sober note. Still, in this specific passage he is much more ecstatic than
in the rest of the commentary.
As for the hierarchy between the encounters of Moses and
Muhammad, I suggest that Q 7:143 should be read and analysed
together with the first eighteen verses of Sūrat al-Najm. Some com-
mentators, like Rūzbihān and Maybudī, established this connection
themselves. But in cases where this is not the case, it may be worth-
while to read and analyse them together. It is clear that they more or
less deal with the same theme and reading them together may show

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how the commentators viewed the position of the prophets and their
aural and visual experiences as mystical models. Sūrat al-Najm is,
therefore, our case study in the next chapter.

Notes
1 Gramlich even made the statement that longing for the vision is the
very core of mysticism: ‘Dem Mystiker geht es um die Schau: er will Gott
sehen’ (The vision is the goal of the mystic; he wants to see God). To sup-
port this point he quotes al-Dārānī answering the question of what the
ʿārifīn want: ‘Bei Gott! Sie wollen nur das Sehen, warum Mose gebeten
hat!’ (By God! They only want to see that for which Moses prayed!).
Gramlich, Der eine Gott, 229. Böwering also mentions the vision of God as
a basic theme in Islamic mysticism (Böwering, ‘Scriptural Senses’, 353).
2 Michael Ebstein has made this suggestion in his reading of passages
on a this-worldly vision of God in the work of Dhū’l-Nūn al-Miṣrī.
Michael Ebstein, ‘Mystical Ascensions and the Hereafter in the Here and
Now: Some Notes on Eschatology in the Traditions Attributed to Dhū
l-Nūn al-Miṣrī’, paper delivered at the HHIT International Symposium
‘Crossing Boundaries: Mystical and Philosophical Conceptualizations of
the Dunyā/Ākhira Relationship’ (Utrecht University, 5 July 2013), http://
vimeo.com/84535394 (accessed 18 August 2014). See also Karamustafa,
‘Eschatology in Early Sufi Thought’.
3 See Böwering, ‘From Word to Vision’.
4 For example, al-Hujwīrī defends that hearing is a more important sense
than seeing, even in relation to God: ‘If it is said that vision of God is
better than hearing His word, I reply that our knowledge of God’s vis-
ibility to the faithful in Paradise is derived from hearing: it is a matter of
indifference whether the understanding allows that God shall be visible
or not, inasmuch as we are assured of the fact by oral tradition. Hence
hearing is superior to sight’ (Nicholson, Kashf al-maḥjūb, 393–4). See
also Gerhard Böwering, ‘From Word to Vision’, 207–9.
5 A transmission by Ibn ʿAbbās reads: ‘Intimate friendship (khilla) is for
Abraham, speech (kalām) for Moses, and vision (ruʾya) for Muhammad.’
Maybudī, Kashf, 9:724. As we shall see in the next chapter, this vision of
God by Muhammad was disputed by conflicting traditions.
6 See Chapter 4, note 1. On the particular case of Moses as a mystical model,
see Georges C. Anawati and Louis Gardet, Mystique musulmane: aspects

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et tendances – expériences et techniques (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J.

Vrin, 1968), 261–71.
7 Nicholson, Kashf al-maḥjūb, 373, 381­–2, 389; Sarrāj, Lumaʿ, 68–9, 335,
350, 96, 116–17. For a list of Sufi terms alluding to visionary experi-
ence, see Marcia K. Hermansen, ‘Visions as “Good to Think”: A Cognitive
Approach to Visionary Experience in Islamic Sufi Thought’, Religion 27
(1997): 27­–30.
8 Q 7:143. Translation is mine.
9 Zamakhsharī, Kashshāf, 2:111–16; Anthony K. Tuft, ‘The Ruʾyā
Controversy and the Interpretation of Qurʾān Verse VII (al-Aʿrāf): 143’,
Hamdard Islamicus 6, no. 3 (1983): 21.
10 Tuft, ‘Ruʾyā Controversy’, 13–14.
11 Ibid., 18.
12 Māturīdī, Taʾwīlāt, 6:47–59.
13 Ibn al-Qayyim, Ḥādī, 196–7.
14 The exact relationship of al-Thaʿlabī to Sufism is not yet clarified. It is
certain that he studied with al-Sulamī, and that he incorporated Sufi
explanations current in his milieu into his Qurʾan commentary. See
Saleh, Formation, 20, 53–66.
15 Thaʿlabī, Kashf, 4:275.
16 That also the overwhelming experience of God’s word could lead to
death according to al-Thaʿlabī is indicated in his work Qatlā al-Qurʾān,
a collection of stories of pious people who died while hearing or recit-
ing the Qurʾan. Whether this is a typical Sufi theme or a more general
expression of piety is matter of debate. See Saleh, Formation, 59–65.
17 Al-Māwardī was indeed criticised by Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 771/1370)
in his Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿīyya for having Muʿtazilī leanings. EI2, s.v.
‘Al-Māwardī’, by C. Brockelmann, 6:869.
18 Māwardī, Nukat, 2:257.
19 He compares it with the request to eat a stone or an apple. The first is
impossible, the second possible. For the stone one would say ‘The stone
cannot to be eaten’, while in the case of an apple one would say ‘You shall
not eat the apple’. Wāḥidī, Basīṭ, 9:333.
20 Ibid., 9:331–5.
21 Mayer, Spiritual Gems, 38.
22 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:237–42; Nwyia, ‘Tafsīr mystique’, 196–7; Mayer,
Spiritual Gems, 37–40.

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23 Mayer translates ʿilm al-iṭṭilāʿ as ‘knowledge of beholding (God) (immi-

nently)’. Mayer, Spiritual Gems, 39.
24 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:237–42; Nwyia, ‘Tafsīr mystique’, 196–7; Mayer,
Spiritual Gems, 37–40.
25 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:237.
26 This is further illustrated by the following line of poetry: ‘Let me wait
and postpone, promise me and do not fulfil’ (Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:237).
27 Ibid., 1:238–9.
28 Ibid., 1:238.
29 Ibid., 1:240.
30 Ibid., 1:239.
31 Ibid., 1:239–40.
32 Ibid., 1:240.
33 Ibid., 1:242.
34 Ibid., 1:240–1. See also Laury Silvers, A Soaring Minaret: Abu Bakr al-
Wasiti and the Rise of Baghdadi Sufism (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2010),
75–6.
35 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, 1:564.
36 Ibid., 1:565.
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid.
40 Maybudī, Kashf, 3:723–8.
41 Ibid., 3:731–2.
42 Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 210, 244–7.
43 Maybudī, Kashf, 5:165; Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 195.
44 Maybudī, Kashf, 5:384; Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 195.
45 Maybudī, Kashf, 3:732–3; Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 195.
46 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fol. 57b.
47 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fols 58b–59a. He does mention a minority
opinion that Moses had seen God in this world at another occasion, alleg-
edly referred to in Q 32:23. This opinion is not mentioned in any of the
other commentaries discussed.
48 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fols 58b–59a.
49 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fol. 58b.
50 Ibid.
51 Baqlī’s Kashf translated in Ernst, Unveiling of Secrets, 92.

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52 Ibid., 22.
53 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 1:463–4.
54 Ibid., 1:462.
55 Ibid., 1:463. See also Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 1:239.
56 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 1:465.
57 Ibid., 1:466.
58 Carl Ernst explains malakūt as the ‘locus for his visionary encounters
with angels, prophets, and God’ and jabarūt as the ‘locus for experiencing
the wrathful and powerful manifestations of the Attributes of majesty’.
Ernst, Ruzbihan, 31.
59 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 1:466.

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7
A Vision at the Utmost Boundary

Introduction

There is no dearth of scholarship on Muhammad’s night journey and

ascension, to the extent that it is quite challenging to write some-
thing that has not yet been said.1 Sufi understandings of the vision of
God in relation to Muhammad’s ascension (miʿrāj), however, are still
underexplored and worthy of further in-depth study.2 This is what is
intended with this chapter. Through a detailed reading and discussion
of the commentaries by our main authors on verses related to the
vision during Muhammad’s night journey (isrāʾ), we hope to shed
new light on how Sufi authors understood this vision, and how this
relates to conventional understandings of the vision during the isrāʾ
and miʿrāj in Islamic tradition.
In most Islamic literature that deals with the isrāʾ and miʿrāj,
descriptions of Paradise and Hell play a prominent role and are even
arguably the most important aspect of the ascension narratives.
However, in our Sufi Qurʾan commentaries this theme is strikingly
absent. Sufi exegesis of the miʿrāj-related verses shows the same
disregard for the otherworld that we observed in Chapter 3. Only
the Qurʾanic passages that the authors could interpret in relation to
the themes of nearness and vision come to the fore. The journey to

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Paradise and Hell was not worth mentioning for Sufi exegetes: only
the journey to God mattered to them. In Sufism, the miʿrāj has tra-
ditionally functioned as a model for instruction to attain this near-
ness to and vision of God. The likes of al-Basṭāmī, al-Sulamī and
al-Qushayrī produced and collected texts that gave a mystical twist to
Muhammad’s ascent.3
In our analysis, we focus on one particular aspect of the miʿrāj
narrative: the vision of God. Böwering has distinguished four main
motifs relating to the vision of God in the ascension narrative, each
related to a different early Sufi authority. The first two motifs are
reminiscent of what we have encountered in the analysis of Moses’s
request for the vision. The first motif is the vision during the ascension
as a foretaste of the vision in the hereafter, which Böwering relates to
al-Wāsiṭī (d. 320/932). The second motif considers the vision during
the ascension not as a foretaste of the world to come, but rather
as the recapturing of the primordial vision of God at the Day of the
Covenant. Böwering relates this to Sahl al-Tustarī. The third motif is
the interiorisation of Muhammad’s vision in the individual mystic. He
relates this to Ibn ʿAṭāʾ (d. 309/922). The fourth motif, related to Jaʿfar
al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765), links the vision of God to the theme of love: the
visionary encounter is an encounter of mutual love and intimacy.4
The first two motifs especially show the relatedness of the theme
of vision in this context with the grander scheme proposed in our
introductory chapter: the vision of the miʿrāj is either a reactualisa-
tion of the primordial vision or an eschatological vision brought into
this-worldly life. Böwering’s classification also once again emphasises
the relatedness of the themes of love and vision. In what follows, we
will see whether this also holds true for the discussions on the miʿrāj
in the works of our commentators.

The Qurʾan and the Night Journey

The Qurʾan contains two passages that are traditionally associated

with the night journey and Muhammad’s ascension: Q 53:1–18
(related to Q 81:19–25) and Q 17:1 (possibly related to Q 17:60, 8:43
and 48:27).5 The verses themselves are rather opaque and do not

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refer to an ascent (miʿrāj, lit. ‘ladder’) explicitly, nor do they reveal the
identities of the involved actors: they are merely referred to as ‘he’,
‘him’ or ‘His servant’. Detailed narrative of the night journey and the
ascension developed outside the Qurʾan, most notably in hadith lit-
erature.6 Only when the narrative was firmly established as part of
the Islamic faith was it read into these Qurʾanic passages in exegeti-
cal literature, in a process that Neuwirth has called ‘mythologising
exegesis’, a process that ‘dissolves the Qurʾanic statements into its
individual elements in order to construct out of these elements side-
plots and background images’.7 The identities of the subjects involved
in the opaque Qurʾanic narratives were thus a matter of speculation
in exegetical literature. As we shall see, several options coexisted for a
long time in tafsīr literature.
All of these verses are important in our analysis, but of special
significance are a couple of verses from Sūrat al-Najm that describe
a visionary encounter between two unidentified entities. We will
first have a closer look at the reception of these verses in the early
tafsīr tradition, how these early positions were disseminated in the
Nishapur school, and then compare these to our Sufi sources.8

Divine or Angelic Manifestation: Readings of Sūrat al-Najm

When glancing at late premodern and modern commentaries on

the Qurʾan, the visionary encounters in Sūrat al-Najm are mostly
interpreted as angelic manifestations. Most commentators state
that Muhammad saw Gabriel. Very rarely the option of a vision of
God is mentioned, mostly only to refute the position.9 The idea that
Muhammad saw God was apparently considered problematic in late
premodern and modern Islamic thought. This was not always the
case. As we shall see, in the period that we are studying, the option
of a vision of God by Muhammad during his this-worldly life was a
serious and prominent position in Qurʾan commentaries. The option
of an angelic vision was present, but not necessarily the most promi-
nent. When Sufi commentators interpreted Sūrat al-Najm within their
larger narrative of the possibility of seeing God during this-worldly
life, they thus remained within the boundaries of what was perceived

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as a legitimate, even conventional, interpretation in their time. There

was no need to overstep the boundaries of the contemporary inter-
pretations for these Sufis; the exegetical option of a vision of God
by Muhammad was present and much more widely accepted than in
later exegetical traditions.
From very early on, whether Muhammad saw God face-to-face
during his night journey had been a matter of controversy. The
controversy over the meaning of the verses in Sūrat al-Najm that
hint at a visionary meeting dated back to opinions attributed to the
companions of Muhammad, which may have been back-projections
of later theological debates. Conflicting traditions found their way
into Qurʾan commentaries. Sayings in favour of the vision of God by
Muhammad were attributed to ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbās (d. 68/687), Anas
b. Mālik (d. 93/711) and, a generation later, ʿIkrima (d. 105/723–4).
A strong statement against the vision was attributed to Muhammad’s
late spouse, ʿĀʾisha (d. 58/678).10 Several positions were taken based
on these transmissions. Some confirmed Muhammad’s vision of God
by the eye during the night journey, some denied it (mostly replacing
God with Gabriel), and some took a middle position claiming that
it was a vision of God by the heart. Yet another position held that
Muhammad saw God twice, once with the eye and once with the
heart.11
The first encounter mentioned in Sūrat al-Najm is a ‘revelation’
(waḥy) that ‘one with mighty powers’ (shadīd al-quwwā) taught
‘him’.12 Most scholars in the field of Qurʾanic Studies understood this
as a revelatory meeting between God and Muhammad.13 However,
there was a striking consensus from very early on in the tafsīr tradi-
tion that the ‘one with mighty powers’ refers to Gabriel and that ‘him’
refers to Muhammad. No one claimed that it was God, nor was this
exegetical option mentioned at all. Even among early exegetes such
as Ibn ʿAbbās, Mujāhid and Muqātil, the only opinion was that this is a
reference to Gabriel revealing the Qurʾan to Muhammad. This remains
so in later conventional tafsīrs as well as in the Sufi commentaries.
In the Sufi commentaries, only al-Qushayrī and al-Daylamī refer to
this issue. Rūzbihān and al-Sulamī do not comment upon the verse

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Table 7.1 ‘Two bow-lengths away or even closer’

Q 53:8–9 Muhammad Gabriel Gabriel to God to Personal
to God to God Muhammad Muhammad preference
Early commentaries
Ibn ʿAbbās + + Gabriel to
Muhammad
Mujāhid + Gabriel to God
Muqātil + God to Muhammad
School of Nishapur
Thaʿlabī + + + Not mentioned
Māwardī + + + Not mentioned
Wāḥidī + Gabriel
Sufi commentaries
Sulamī + Not mentioned
Qushayrī + + Gabriel to
Muhammad
Maybudī II + + Not mentioned
Maybudī III
Daylamī + + Muhammad to God
Rūzbihān + Muhammad to God

at all. Maybudī deals with the matter only briefly in his conventional
commentary.14
However, it is different regarding the second mention of an
encounter, in Q 53:8–9. This passage mentions how someone draws
near and comes down, until he is ‘two bow-lengths away or even
closer’ (thumma danā fa-tadallā, fa-kāna qāba qawsayni aw adnā).
Who or what draws near and comes down, and towards whom or
what, does not become clear from the Qurʾanic passage itself and is
again the domain of exegesis. Commentaries give roughly four options:
Muhammad moved towards God; God moved towards Muhammad;
Gabriel moved towards Muhammad; or Gabriel moved towards God
(see Table 7.1).
These four options are already present among our sample of
earliest commentators. Ibn ʿAbbās mentions two opinions: either
Gabriel drew near to Muhammad or Muhammad drew near to
God. His personal preference is the first option.15 In the commen-
tary by Mujāhid, only the opinion of Gabriel drawing near to God

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is ­mentioned.16 Muqātil sees no difficulty in claiming that God drew

near and descended to Muhammad.17 As an avowed anthropomor-
phist who even believed that God had physically touched Muhammad,
this idea was not problematic to him. Only the first three of these
early positions find their way into the commentaries of the Nishapur
school. Al-Thaʿlabī and al-Māwardī mention them all equally without
stating a preference. These commentators from Nishapur do not cite
Muqātil’s position, probably because its anthropomorphic implica-
tions were not acceptable to them.18 Muqātil’s position reappears only
in Maybudī’s conventional tafsīr. He also suggests that God may have
descended to Muhammad.19 To Maybudī, the statement may not have
been so problematic given the negative attitude towards kalām of his
teacher ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī. Al-Daylamī mentions the option as well,
but merely says that some have suggested it and that he doubts its
correctness.20 It is a salient point that of the Sufi commentators only
al-Qushayrī involves Gabriel in his position. All other Sufi commentar-
ies prefer the option that Muhammad drew closer to God. This option
fits better with the typical Sufi theme of nearness to God as a mystical
objective, and thus pushes the angelic option to the background.21
So far the Qurʾanic verses that refer to an encounter of revelation
and an encounter of drawing near have been described. The two pas-
sages after these explicitly mention visionary encounters, and this is
where things become more equivocal. Q 53:11 reads as follows: mā
kadh(dh)aba al-fuʾādu ma raʾā. Two variant readings are extant of
the verse, with consequences for its meaning according to exegetes.
The variant readings differ with respect to the verb k-dh-b, namely
whether the dh should be read with a shadda or not. Read without
a shadda, the subject would refer to itself, rendering the meaning:
‘The heart did not belie what it [the heart] saw.’ The heart itself is
the locus of the vision according to this reading. When read with a
shadda, it emphasises a higher level of belying. The locus of vision is
other than the heart, which would imply a less emphasised form of
belying; in exegesis this is explained as the vision of the eye, which has
a higher level of certainty and would need a stronger form of belying
than a vision by the heart: ‘The heart did not belie what it [the eye]

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Table 7.2 ‘The heart did not belie what he/it saw’
Q 53:11–12 Muhammad Muhammad Muhammad Personal preference
saw God with saw God with saw Gabriel
the eye the heart
Early commentaries
Ibn ʿAbbās + + Muhammad saw
God with the heart
Mujāhid + + Not mentioned.
Cites Gabriel option
more often
Muqātil Raʾā min amri
rabbihī
School of Nishapur
Thaʿlabī + + +
Māwardī + + +
Wāḥidī + + + Muhammad saw
God with the eye
Sufi commentaries
Sulamī + +
Qushayrī + Muhammad saw
‘signs’
Maybudī II + + + Muhammad saw
God with the eye
Maybudī III
Daylamī + Muhammad saw
God with the eye
Rūzbihān + + Muhammad saw
God with the eye
and the heart

saw.’22 In the commentary tradition, the most important exegetical

options are Muhammad’s vision of either God or Gabriel (see Table
7.2). For the vision of God, the modality of the eye and the heart are
both mentioned. In addition, minor positions are mentioned, such as
Muhammad seeing God in his sleep, seeing the might of God, seeing a
light or signs.23
The second passage referring to a visionary encounter follows
directly on from the former: ‘He saw him/Him at another descent, at
the lote tree of the utmost boundary’ (Q 53:13–14). Here the same
basic positions can be distinguished as in the former passage (see
Table 7.3). However, the idea of an angelic manifestation instead of a

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Table 7.3 ‘He saw him/Him at another descent, at the lote tree of the
utmost boundary’
Q 53:13–14 Muhammad Muhammad Muhammad Gabriel Personal
saw God with saw God with saw Gabriel saw preference
the eye the heart God
Early commentaries
Ibn ʿAbbās + + + Muhammad
saw Gabriel
Mujāhid
Muqātil +
School of Nishapur
Thaʿlabī + Muhammad
saw Gabriel
Māwardī + + +
Wāḥidī + +
Sufi commentaries
Sulamī
Qushayrī + Gabriel saw
God
Maybudī II + Muhammad
saw Gabriel
Maybudī III
Daylamī +
Rūzbihān + + Essentially
same vision
as first

divine manifestation is a bit more prominent. The exegetes considered

it problematic to attribute the idea of a descent (nazla) mentioned
in the verse to God, since they considered God to be transcendent
above movement and place. In exegesis then, the passage is often
linked to the angelic manifestation described in Q 81:19–23 (‘He saw
him at the clear horizon’). In this way, Q 81:19–23 would be the first
vision of Gabriel, and the visionary encounter mentioned in Q 53:13
would be the second. Al-Thaʿlabī, for example, followed the opinion
attributed to ʿĀʾisha that Muhammad saw Gabriel in his true form at
this descent, mentioning it as the best option according to scholars,
because the vision is connected to a place and is thus not applicable
to God: ‘Describing God with a place and descent, which is relocation,
is impossible.’24

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Vision and Nearness: Al-Sulamī

Compared with the rich and varied material in his collected commen-
taries on Q 7:143, al-Sulamī’s commentary on the verses related to the
miʿrāj is not very extensive. This may be because he had already col-
lected the bulk of the material available to him in his Laṭāʾif al-miʿrāj
and saw no point in collecting all of them twice.25 What does catch the
eye is that the verses dealing with nearness and vision attract most
commentary in his discussion of Sūrat al-Najm. The commentary on
this surah is not at all used to discuss details of the isrāʾ and the
miʿrāj, nor to reflect on Muhammad’s visit to Paradise and Hell from
a Sufi perspective. Apparently all that mattered to the early Sufi com-
mentators quoted by al-Sulamī were the verses that the Sufis could
use to describe a moment of intimacy and nearness to God and, more
controversially, the vision of Him.
In the commentary on the second verse of Sūrat al-Najm (‘Your
companion has not strayed, nor erred’), a link to the theme of near-
ness and vision has already been established. Al-Sulamī quotes both
Ibn ʿAtāʾ and Jaʿfar as stating that Muhammad did not stray from
nearness to or vision of God for the blink of an eye.26 The two modes
of vision suggested in conventional tafsīr, of the eye and of the heart,
both return in al-Sulamī’s commentary. Sahl is quoted in support
of a vision of the heart: ‘He is right opposite in his witnessing of his
Lord, seeing Him with his heart.’27 Bundār b. al-Ḥusayn (d. 353/964)
also considers it to be a vision of the heart. Two words referring to
the heart – fuʾād and qalb – are not synonymous for him, however,
but are the separate layers of a spiritual organ. The fuʾād contains
the qalb: ‘The fuʾād is the vessel of the qalb. The fuʾād did not doubt
about what the foundation saw, and that [foundation] is the qalb.’28
According to Jaʿfar, the theme of vision is again related to the theme of
divine love. He shrouds the vision in mystery, a secret known only by
the two Lovers: ‘No one knows what he saw, except He who showed
and he who saw. The Beloved came close to the beloved, a confidant
for him, an intimate friend with him.’29 Only Ibn ʿAṭāʾ is quoted in
favour of a vision with the eye. He understands the verse according

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to the reading with the shadda: ‘His heart did not belie what he saw
with his eyes.’ Not everyone is capable of this, according to Ibn ʿAṭāʾ;
sometimes someone is overwhelmed by what his eyes see, while his
heart cannot grasp it. However, Muhammad was capable of this.30

Angelic Manifestation: Al-Qushayrī

The commentary of al-Qushayrī differs from the other commentaries

in that he chooses Gabriel as the main character in the encounters
in the verse. This difference becomes most visible when we look at
which sayings from al-Sulamī’s commentary on Sūrat al-Najm are
included in al-Qushayrī’s Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt. Al-Qushayrī includes only
one quote from al-Sulamī’s commentary, a saying by Jaʿfar (quoted
anonymously) in which the verse ‘then he drew near and came down’ is
interpreted as Muhammad drawing near to his own heart.31 He leaves
out all quotes that describe a vision of God by Muhammad. Al-Qushayrī
thus shows himself, contrary to his commentary on Moses’s request
to see God, in an extraordinarily sober position, avoiding themes that
pertain to nearness, vision or even love mysticism.
In his commentary on the verses thumma danā fa-tadallā, fa-kāna
qāba qawsayn aw adnā, al-Qushayrī opens with his personal opinion
that Gabriel drew close to Muhammad and descended, being two bow-
lengths away from Muhammad. Why al-Qushayrī made this choice is
not easy to reconstruct. It was an unusual choice in the context of his
broader intellectual milieu and most of his contemporaries in Nishapur
did not even mention this option. Only after having mentioned his
own opinion most prominently does his commentary continue with
two other voices that interpret the verse as Muhammad drawing near
to God. However, these voices consider this drawing near to be an
inward matter. Drawing near to God to two bow-lengths, for example,
is interpreted as ‘the imminence of blessing’ (dunuw al-karāma) or
an increase in experiential knowledge. The descent mentioned in the
verse, then, is Muhammad prostrating before his Lord.32
Only in his commentary on verse Q 53:11 does al-Qushayrī
neutrally mention the opinion that Muhammad saw God, without
specifying the modality of this vision: ‘He saw his Lord that night

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in a way where he knew Him before seeing Him.’33 However, even

here it is not framed as his own preferred opinion. Al-Qushayrī pre-
fers to interpret the object of vision as signs (āyāt), referring to the
‘signs’ mentioned in Q 53:18 (‘He saw of the greatest signs of his
Lord’). This was all Muhammad saw that night. These signs were
seen with the eye, and understood by the heart.34 In his commentary
on Q 53:13, he gives only the interpretation that Gabriel saw God a
second time. He does not discuss any opinion that claims a vision of
God by Muhammad.35
It is tempting to attribute al-Qushayrī’s avoidance of the theme
of the vision of God to his Ashʿarī partisanship. However, Ashʿarī doc-
trine was not against the idea of Muhammad seeing God during the
night journey per se. Moreover, other commentators from Nishapur
with Ashʿarī leanings did not see a problem in interpreting the verses
this way. It is also unlikely that he was somehow careful to express
an opinion in favour of the vision of God for fear of a backlash from
the Muʿtazilī partisans. After all, al-Qushayrī took a clear stance in the
schism in Nishapur and even wrote polemical defences for typical
Ashʿarī stances against the Muʿtazila.36 An explanation may be that
he, like his predecessors al-Sarrāj (d. 377/988) and al-Kalābādhī (d.
380/990 or 384/994), was very wary of people who claimed a heav-
enly journey and visionary experience similar to that of Muhammad.37
His wariness of claiming a vision of God by Muhammad and preferring
the Gabriel option may have been a way to counter such claims and
to let his students refrain from striving for and claiming of similar
experiences.

Muhammad Surpassing Moses: Maybudī

Before moving to the ishārī part (nawbat III) of Maybudī’s commen-

tary, it is worthwhile focusing first on the conventional part (nawbat
II). This will help us to understand how his theological positions on
the miʿrāj, and most importantly on the issue of Muhammad’s vision
of God, are entangled with his ishārī understandings of the verses. In
his commentary on Sūrat al-Najm, Maybudī’s identity as a Ḥanbalī
traditionist in credal matters comes to the fore, focusing as he does on

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grammatical explanation and evaluation of transmissions rather than

on theological reasoning. Maybudī first takes note of the two variant
readings of Q 53:11 and explains the difference in meaning between
the two readings of the verb k-dh-b, as discussed above. He then
relates the different opinions on the object of the vision: God (with
the heart or the eyes) or Gabriel. He has an outspoken preference
for the position of al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Anas and ʿIkrima in favour of a
vision of God with the eyes, mentioning it as the only right position.
He dismisses ʿĀʾisha’s position, who allegedly stated that Muhammad
never claimed to have seen God, because she referred not to what
she heard Muhammad say, but to what she did not hear him say. He
prefers the transmission by Ibn ʿAbbās, who claimed to have heard
Muhammad say that he saw God. He thinks this is a stronger proof
because it contains a confirmation through what was actually heard
from the Prophet, while ʿĀʾisha’s negation came from her own opin-
ion. The first type of evidence has more weight for him. On Q 53:13, he
notes the same difference of opinion as on the former verse. Here he
does not make a clear choice himself, but merely conveys the position
that it may have been either Gabriel or God.38
In his ishārī commentary on Sūrat al-Najm, the issue of vision is
not Maybudī’s main point of interest. Although he comments only
on the verses that are related to nearness and vision, the theme of
vision does not form the core of his comments. Most of his comments
are a praise of Muhammad and his night journey as the purpose of
creation. From several passages it becomes clear that he considered
Muhammad’s vision of God to have been a face-to-face encounter
with the physical eye. In his commentary on Q 17:1, he confirms that
Muhammad saw God. However, he shrouds the details of the meet-
ing with God in mystery and stresses that they are impenetrable for
others: ‘He heard the secret, he tasted the wine, he saw the vision of
God . . . he saw what he saw, and no one knows about these secrets,
intellects and imaginations are deprived of comprehending them.’39 In
his commentary on the first verse, he states that ‘By the star when it
descended’ is an allusion to Muhammad’s return from the face-to-face
vision (ḥaḍrat-i ʿiyān) in the miʿrāj, where his heart also found ‘the

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spirit of witnessing’ (rūḥ-i mushāhadat) and he reached a state of

nearness (qurb) and communion (muwāṣala).40
As earlier, in his discussion on Q 7:143 Maybudī uses the theme
of the vision of God to establish a hierarchy between Moses and
Muhammad, in favour of the latter.41 He explains that Moses thought
that his ascension to Mount Sinai was the highest possible level to
be reached. While Moses’s request for vision was rejected with the
‘sword of vigilant care’ (ṣamṣām-i ghayrat) – that is, the sharp words
‘You shall not see Me’ (Q 7:143) – Muhammad was commanded not to
direct his eyes at anything but Him: ‘Do not divert your eyes’ (Q 15:88).
Muhammad’s eyes were not diverted according to Maybudī, quot-
ing Q 53:17 (‘The eyesight did not swerve, nor did it transgress’) as
well as some verses of poetry alluding to Muhammad seeing God.42 In
addition, in his commentary on Q 17:1, Maybudī links Muhammad’s
journey with Moses’s retreat on Mount Sinai. He points out that
while Moses came to the mountain by himself – ‘Moses came to Our
appointed time’ (Q 7:143) – Muhammad’s journey had an involuntary
nature to it – ‘Who took His servant by night’ (Q 17:1).43

Muhammad’s Light Entering God’s World: Al-Daylamī

As in the commentary on Adam’s banishment and Moses’s request

for the vision, al-Daylamī’s commentaries on the verses related to
Muhammad’s isrāʾ and miʿrāj are rather brief. While Q 17:1 remains
completely unaddressed, Sūrat al-Najm provokes only minimal frag-
mentary comments. This briefness is in stark contrast to the promi-
nence that he gives to the question of ruʾyat Allāh in his other treatises.
On Q 53:11, he states only that ‘the heart did not belie, deny or doubt
what the eye saw, witnessing with the eye. He witnessed his Lord
face-to-face with the sight of the eye (baṣar).’44 He thus is a proponent
of an ocular vision of God by Muhammad. He confirms this in the
next verse, even stating that Muhammad saw not only the attributes
of God, but also His essence. This vision, according to al-Daylamī, is
repeated ‘at another descent’, or another ascension, at the lote tree of
the utmost boundary (sidrat al-muntahā).45
Al-Daylamī interprets ‘Then he drew near’ to refer to Muhammad

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coming near to his Lord, moving into His world as the veils between
them are torn apart. Muhammad is described as a light in veils. ‘And
descended’ is an allusion to the beams of Muhammad spreading out in
God’s world after these veils have been removed:

He was a light in veils. When he went out of them [the veils], his
beams were spread there like the sun when it goes out from the
clouds. His body was close like the nearness of two bow-lengths.
Then what was left of the veils was lifted, and he became nearer and
closer.46

According to al-Daylamī, many falsely consider this drawing near to

be divine indwelling (ḥulūl). He stresses that ‘it is nothing but the
lifting of the veils’.47 He dismisses the opinion of some exegetes that
God drew near to Muhammad. God is near by definition and distance
is impossible (mustaḥīl) in reference to God,48 while the servant is
distant from God because of the veils between them.49

God Seeing God: Rūzbihān’s Vision through Unification (Ittiḥād)

Carl Ernst has noted that Rūzbihān in his visionary autobiography

Kashf al-asrār ‘frequently alludes to ascension as the mode by which
he, in imitation of the Prophet, journeys to see God’.50 He stresses
‘the importance of the model of the Prophet for the interior ascen-
sion of the Sufi’.51 Rūzbihān’s treatment of Muhammad’s ascension
in his Qurʾan commentary can indeed be read as a guide for spiritual
ascension, taking the reader through the process of seclusion from
creation to the different stations on the way, culminating in unifica-
tion (ittiḥād) with God and a vision of Him in that ultimate state.
In his Mashrab al-arwāḥ, Rūzbihān makes it clear that he believes
that Muhammad had indeed seen God. In several places, he quotes
hadiths in which Muhammad makes statements about the modalities
and forms of his visions of God.52 Moreover, in his Qurʾan commentary
he takes Muhammad as an example of someone who is constantly in a
state of passionate love after having seen God in a face-to-face encoun-
ter. On Q 18:28 (‘Keep yourself patient together with those who call
upon their Lord in the morning and evening, seeking His face’), he

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comments that God means to comfort His prophet by this verse. Ever
since Muhammad had seen the beauty and majesty of God ‘between
the two bow-lengths (qāba qawsayn)’, he states, ‘he was with his heart
in al-malakūt, with his spirit in al-jabarūt, with his inmost self (sirr)
in the witnessing of beginninglessness (mushāhadat al-qidam), and
with his mind (ʿaql) in the lights of His unseen longing for God’.53 The
overwhelming experience of seeing God made him impatient to see
Him again and to transgress the boundaries of created form for a new
ascension to two bow-lengths. In Rūzbihān’s commentary, we see the
same precondition for the possibility of the vision of God that we wit-
nessed earlier in several commentaries on the request from Moses:
Muhammad first has to overcome his human form to be able to reach
the state of seeing God. While God is embodied in Rūzbihān’s descrip-
tions of the vision of God, the viewer first has to be disembodied. In
Rūzbihān’s conception, once again the theme of vision is intimately
intertwined with the theme of passionate love. In Rūzbihān’s words,
God advises Muhammad to

restrain yourself with those poor intense lovers of My beauty, those

who long for My majesty, who at all times ask Me to meet My noble
face, and want to fly with the wings of love to the world of commun-
ion with Me (ʿālam waṣlatī) so that they are comforted through your
company with the station of communion (maqām al-wiṣāl). In your
vision is the vision of that beauty for them. You are with them as a
confirmation, while your inmost self, mind, spirit and heart are with
Me. They are loci of the manifestation (tajallī) of My greatness and
the secrets of My might. Creation does not have the power to be near
your heart . . . ‘And do not look beyond them’ [Q 18:28] because they
look to Me through your eye, when your eye seeks the witnessing of
Me in the reflection of My acts.54

Whoever remains close to Muhammad thus has access to the vision

of God. One can see God through Muhammad’s presence. When
Muhammad witnesses God in the reflection of His acts – that is, an
indirect vision through creation – the believers who are with him
and seek God’s face see God through the eyes of Muhammad. An

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echo of the importance of the shaykh–murīd relationship that rose

to prominence in the time of Rūzbihān can be found in this idea. Just
as the seeker of God (murīd) needs his shaykh to be able to find God,
so the community of believers needs Muhammad in order to reach
the witnessing and vision of God. Muhammad – just as the shaykh –
is the medium (wasīla) between the believer and the vision of God.
Muhammad – who actually belongs to God, where his inner consti-
tution still remains – is commanded to reside among the ordinary
people for this specific purpose.
Rūzbihān is the only one of our commentators who gives a rich
and detailed description of the modality of Muhammad’s vision of God
during his night journey. In his commentary on Q 17:1, he describes
a similar modality as al-Wāsiṭī in the case study of Moses: a vision
of God through God. He describes a process of unification (ittiḥād)
between Muhammad and God, resulting in a vision of God by God’s
own eye.55
His discussion of Q 17:1 is a fine example of how tafsīr bi’l-ishāra
(exegesis by allusion) works in practice. Rūzbihān distinguishes four
allusions in the verse, using key passages and words to project his
own ideas and associations onto the Qurʾanic verse. The first is an
allusion of transcendence (taqdīs) in the word subḥān (‘transcendent’
or ‘praised’). According to Rūzbihān, this word in the verse alludes to
the non-physical character of Muhammad’s destination; he did not
travel towards a place. When Muhammad arrived at ‘behind what is
behind’ (warāʾ al-warāʾ) and rose to the kingdom of heavens (malakūt
al-samawāt) to meet his Lord it was not an elevation to a specific
place. He stresses that God is transcendent above any suggestion
of direction or place and cannot be likened to creation in any way.
The second allusion Rūzbihān finds is in the word alladhī (the rela-
tive pronoun ‘who’), which he holds to be an allusion of vigilant care
(ghayra). This vigilant care is expressed in Muhammad being singled
out from all of creation to see God. God chose to mention neither His
own name in the verse, using the relative pronoun instead, nor the
name of Muhammad, so that nobody would try to rise up to Him and
Muhammad during their meeting. The third allusion, of the unseen

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(ghayb), he sees in a word play with the verb asrā, which he reads
as ‘kept secret’ instead of as ‘made travel by night’. He stresses how
Muhammad was singled out into the unseen for a secret meeting with
God in the night.56 The fourth allusion of the inmost secret (sirr), then,
Rūzbihān uses to describe the spiritual development of Muhammad
through several halting places (spiritual way stations), ultimately
leading to the halting place of unification (ittiḥād). This passage gives
a good impression of the spiritual progress that Rūzbihān strives for,
taking Muhammad’s ascension as the model:

‘He made His servant travel by night’, from the halting place of will
(irāda) to the halting place of love (maḥabba), and from the halting
place of love to the halting place of experiential knowledge (maʿrifa),
and from the halting place of experiential knowledge to the halting
place of divine unity (tawḥīd), and from the halting place of divine
unity to the halting place of solitariness (tafrīd), and from the halt-
ing place of solitariness to the halting place of annihilation ( fanāʾ),
and from the halting place of annihilation to the halting place of
subsistence (baqāʾ), and from the halting place of subsistence to the
halting place of acquiring [God’s] attributes (ittiṣāf),57 and from the
halting place of acquiring [God’s] attributes to the halting place of
unification (ittiḥād).58

Whereas authors like al-Sulamī and al-Daylamī did not go further

than the state of annihilation ( fanāʾ) to describe the spiritual progress
of Moses leading to the vision, Rūzbihān takes it a few steps further,
ultimately leading Muhammad towards ittiḥād, a term that was con-
troversial not only among critics of Sufism, but within Sufi circles as
well. It is very rarely used in Sufi texts due to this controversy.59 In
what follows, Rūzbihān gives a detailed description of the spiritual
process Muhammad went through to reach this state of ittiḥād and
subsequently the vision of God. In this description, he is careful to
state that ittiḥād does not mean that the divine and the human mingle:
there is no indwelling (ḥulūl) and divinity (nāsūtiyya) and humanity
(lāhūtiyya) remain strictly separated.60
Once again, as in the case study of Moses, we see that to be able

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to see God one first has to go beyond one’s human form: Muhammad
surpassed the forms of createdness (rusūm al-ḥudūthiyya). To illus-
trate this, Rūzbihān makes a cross-reference to Sūrat al-Najm, to the
verse ‘Then he came near and he descended’. In the context of this
verse, he describes Muhammad’s state of annihilation:
No form of createdness (rusūm al-ḥudūthiyya) remained with him
due to the appropriation of the created by the beginningless. He
came near to Him and then descended from Him, then annihilated in
Him, and between [Him and] his annihilation were the lengths of two
bows,61 the bow of pre-eternity (azal) and the bow of post-eternity
(abad), and between the two bows he disappeared into the unseen,
and his disappearance subsisted. He was on the same level or closer,
and made the unseen of his unseen (ghayb ghaybihi) disappear by
disappearance (ghayba), as if he was in the annihilation of annihila-
tion, and annihilation due to the annihilation of annihilation.
His name subsisted in the demonstrative pronoun (ism
al-ishāra) by His saying {subḥān alladhī asrā bi-ʿabdihi}, meaning:
he is with his halting place at the station of unification (ittiḥād)
upon the characteristic (waṣf) of servanthood (ʿubūdiyya), praised
be (subḥān) who is transcendent (subḥān) above being a halting
place for created beings, or of the mixture of divinity (lāhūtiyya)
with humanity (nāsūtiyya).62

Besides the described journey through the subsequent halting

places, Rūzbihān also perceives an ascension within the vision of God
itself. He redefines Muhammad’s journey as a journey through the
vision of different aspects of God, following the tripartite division in
essence, attributes and acts. From the vision of His acts and signs
(āyāt), Muhammad travelled to the vision of His attributes, and from
there to the vision of His essence. This last vision of the essence is the
vision that takes place in unification (ittiḥād). In this state it is God
Himself who sees God, since Muhammad in this state of unification
sees and hears through the sight and hearing of God63:
He saw God through God, and there he became attributed with the
attribute of God, and his form (ṣūra) was his spirit, his spirit his

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intellect, his intellect his heart, and his heart his inmost self. He saw
God in all of his existence ( jamīʿ wujūdihi), because his existence
completely became one of the eyes of God. He saw God by all the
eyes, and he heard His speech from all the ears, and he came to
experiential knowledge of God by all the hearts, until his eyes, ears,
hearts, spirits and intellects were annihilated in God. God looked
towards God for the sake of him as a representative of him, because
the eyes of createdness had been annihilated in the eyes of God, and
the eyes of God had returned to God, so God saw God, and God had
experiential knowledge of God, and God heard from God as a mercy
from Him to him, and as a kindness to him, because He hears and
sees.64

However, the reverse is also taking place in this vision. Muhammad

does not only see God through God. God is seeing Himself through his
servant. Muhammad sees through the eye of God, while God uses the
eye of Muhammad:

Do you not consider the end of the verse, His saying: {innahu huwa
al-samīʿ al-baṣīr}. He heard the speech from Himself, and saw
Himself by Himself. He was in post-eternity Hearing, Seeing, but
here He hears and sees by the hearing and seeing of His servant and
the seeing of His servant.65

Like al-Daylamī, Rūzbihān holds that Muhammad was capable of

seeing God’s unadulterated essence. Since Muhammad was strong
enough for the vision of God’s attributes in the highest and lowest
malakūt, so argues Rūzbihān, he should also have been ‘capable of
seeing His unadulterated essence without veil, reckoning, darkness,
fog, detectiveness, without signs and without tokens. But he sees Him
by Him, not by anything [else], and not by himself.’66
Also in his commentary on Sūrat al-Najm, he describes a pro-
cess of Muhammad surpassing his human form. The term ittiḥād is
not used explicitly, but the process that Rūzbihān describes may be
considered an expression of the same idea that was articulated in
the former passage. Commenting on Q 53:8, he describes Muhammad

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coming close to God by being ‘clothed’ in ‘the characteristics of the

attributes (nuʿūt al-ṣifāt) and the lights of the essence’.67 By this pro-
cess of iltibās, Muhammad surpassed the deficiencies of createdness
(ḥadthāniyya). Rūzbihān does not explicitly specify the implications
of this statement, but one can say that to surpass the deficiencies of
createdness implies becoming godlike. What follows does indeed hint
at such an understanding by Rūzbihān. He describes how Muhammad
first witnessed the attributes and almost stopped there due to the
great pleasure that he experienced at that station. However, God made
him travel further to His essence, in which he was then annihilated:
‘He drowned in the sea of the essence, and nothing of his knowledge
remained with him, nothing of his sight, nothing of his hearing, and
nothing of his consciousness.’68 Again Rūzbihān describes a vision of
God through God. God ‘clothed’ Muhammad with a light of His sight, so
that Muhammad saw God by the light of God.69
Rūzbihān confirms the vision with both the heart and the eye in
his commentary on Q 53:11. He explains that only the vision of the
heart is mentioned in the verse, while God did not mention the vision
of the eye out of vigilant care. The vision of the eye is a secret between
God and His beloved and is specific, while the vision of the heart is
general. However, in the same passage he stresses that what the heart
and the eye see is the same. God made him see His beauty with his
eye, which was ‘painted [like kuḥl] with the light of His essence and
His attributes’.70 This vision of God’s beauty then arrived at the heart,
seeing what the eye saw. This vision did not remain confined to the
eye: his entire body, all his senses and all the atoms of his existence
saw Him. Therefore the vision of God by Muhammad, the truthful
passionate lover (al-ʿāshiq al-ṣādiq), is the most complete: God did His
utmost in this vision, leaving no veils between Him and Muhammad.71

Conclusion

Let us now return to the main points raised in the beginning of this
chapter. We pointed out that while there is an abundance of studies
on the theme of the isrāʾ and miʿrāj in Islamic literature, there is a
relative silence on the aspect of the vision of God during that miʿrāj in

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relation to Sufism. In this chapter, we hoped to fill this gap by a close

reading of the commentary on verses related to the vision during the
miʿrāj. The relative briefness of most Sufi commentators on the verses
related to Muhammad’s heavenly journey, with Rūzbihān being the
notable exception, comes a bit as a surprise. Given the prominence of
the theme of ascension in Sufism and the importance of this narrative
for establishing the elevated rank of Muhammad through his ascen-
sion and vision of God, one would expect much more. Only Rūzbihān
provides a lengthy commentary on the relevant verses, and goes into
great detail concerning the mode of vision of God by Muhammad. In
the case of al-Sulamī and al-Qushayrī, one may explain their brevity
by the fact that they had already made separate compilations of say-
ings on Muhammad’s ascension, which contain commentary on the
relevant verses in Sūrat al-Najm. Why Maybudī and al-Daylamī are
relatively brief on the issue is more difficult to explain.
Despite this relative brevity in their commentary on the relevant
verses, the commentaries still offer valuable information for coming
to a better understanding of Sufi conceptions of the vision during
the miʿrāj, and their relation to conventional understandings. When
raising the issue of the interpretation of the verses that deal with
the visionary aspect of the miʿrāj in both conventional and ishārī
commentaries, we have focused on the relation between these two
approaches to the text of the Qurʾan and to the perceived subject
and object of vision in the commentaries. Is it considered a vision of
God or a vision of the angel Gabriel? Is it a vision by the eye or by the
heart? As we have seen, in conventional commentaries there is a dif-
ference of opinion on the issue, with the most notable options being a
vision of God by either the heart or the eye, or an angelic vision. In our
period these options coexisted, with no shared preference among the
exegetes for any one ‘strongest’ opinion.
We were curious to see whether the Sufi commentaries stay close
to these conventional commentaries in their understanding of these
verses or whether they offer an approach of their own. On the issue
of the vision during the miʿrāj, most of our Sufi authors are clear
that they believe it to be a vision of God. The only exception is, as

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in the other case studies, al-Qushayrī, who prefers the option that
Muhammad saw Gabriel. He categorically denies the possible inter-
pretation that Muhammad had seen God during his heavenly journey,
not even by a contemplative vision with his heart. It appears to be the
case that the Sufi exegetes in favour of a divine vision optimally use
the existing difference of opinion on the issue in conventional tafsīr,
pushing the limits of the conventional intepretations to legitimise
their descriptions of the visionary experience of God by Muhammad.
They thus, strictly speaking, always remain within the boundaries of
conventional interpretations; these intepretations conditioned how
far they could go in their understanding of the vision of God. An excep-
tion to this is Rūzbihān, whose proposed mode of vision by unification
(ittiḥād) could not be anchored in conventional understandings of
the verses. Rūzbihān himself does not problematise this, however,
nor seek to reconcile his approach to the vision with the mainstream
positions.
Yet again we have witnessed the relative absence of an element of
genealogy in the commentaries. In Table 7.4, we can see how the com-
mentaries collected by al-Sulamī on the first verses of Sūrat al-Isrāʾ
and Sūrat al-Najm are not incorporated into the later commentaries of
al-Qushayrī, Maybudī and al-Daylamī, with very few exceptions. Only
Rūzbihān partly incorporates the sayings of al-Sulamī, more as a form
of recognition of his predecessor than as a functionally integrated
part of his own reflections.
This lack of genealogy also shows in the diversity of style and con-
tent in the commentaries. Like in the earlier case studies, the authors
do not offer uniform positions at all and although certain themes are
shared – for example, transcending above human forms to be able to
see God – all five authors bring their own specific concepts, models of
seeing, and accents to their discussion of the verses. Again the rela-
tive originality of Sufi tafsīr comes to the fore, as compared with its
conventional counterparts.

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Table 7.4 Genealogy of Sufi sayings in the sources

Q 17:1 in Sulamī Qushayrī Maybudī Daylamī Rūzbihān
Wāsiṭī - - - +
Abū Yazīd - - - +
Ibn ʿAṭāʾ - - - +
Jaʿfar - - - +
Naṣrābādhī - - - -
‘one of them’ - - - +
Q 53:8 in Sulamī Qushayrī Maybudī Daylamī Rūzbihān
Jaʿfar - - - -
Jaʿfar + - - -
Qāsim - - - -
Wāsiṭī - - - -
Wāsiṭī - - - -
Q 53:10 in Sulamī Qushayrī Maybudī Daylamī Rūzbihān
Jaʿfar - - - +
Wāsiṭī - - - +
Jaʿfar - - - +
Q 53:11 in Sulamī Qushayrī Maybudī Daylamī Rūzbihān
Sahl - - +/- +
Ibn ʿAṭāʾ - - - +
Bundār - - - -
Ibn ʿAṭāʾ - - - +
Jaʿfar - - - -

Notes
1 Even if we limit ourselves to scholarship from the last two decades the
interest is evident. See Brooke Olson Vuckovic, Heavenly Journeys, Earthly
Concerns: The Legacy of the Miʿraj in the Formation of Islam (London:
Routledge, 2005); Frederick Colby, Narrating Muhammad’s Night
Journey: Tracing the Development of the Ibn ʿAbbās Ascension Discourse
(Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2008); Christiane Gruber and Frederick Colby,
eds, The Prophet’s Ascension: Cross-Cultural Encounters with the Islamic
Miʿrāj Tales (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010); Ronald
P. Buckley, The Night Journey and Ascension in Islam: The Reception of
Religious Narrative in Sunnī, Shīʿī and Western Culture (London: I. B.
Tauris, 2013); Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, ed., Le voyage initiatique
en terre d’Islam: ascensions célestes et itineraires spirituels (Leuven

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and Paris: Peeters, 1996). For an overview of earlier scholarship on

the miʿrāj, see Vuckovic, Heavenly Journeys, 7–13; EI2, s.v. ‘Miʿrādj’, by
J. Horowitz; J. Bencheikh, 7:97–105.
2 For Sufi understandings of the vision during the miʿrāj only Böwering,
‘From Word to Vision’, is currently available. Van Ess has drawn atten-
tion to the relation of the miʿrāj to the issue of the vision of God in several
publications, relating it to early debates on anthropomorphism. See Josef
van Ess, ‘Le miʿrāğ et la vision de Dieu dans les premières speculations
théologique en Islam’, in Le voyage initiatique en terre d’Islam: ascensions
célestes et itineraires spirituels, ed. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi (Leuven
and Paris: Peeters, 1996), 27–56; TG, 4:387–90; Josef van Ess, ‘Vision
and Ascension: Sūrat al-Najm and its Relationship with Muḥammad’s
Miʿrāj’, JQS 1, no. 1 (1999): 47–62; Josef van Ess, The Flowering of Muslim
Theology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 45–77.
3 For a critical edition of al-Sulamī’s Laṭāʾif al-miʿrāj, see Abū ʿAbd
al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, ‘Bayān laṭāʾif al-miʿrāj’, in Sufi Treatises of Abū ʿAbd
al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021), eds Gerhard Böwering and Bilal Orfali
(Beirut: Dar El-Machreq, 2009), 21–30. For a translation and annotation,
see Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, The Subtleties of the Ascension: Early
Mystical Sayings on Muhammad’s Heavenly Journey, trans. Frederick S.
Colby (Louisville: Fons Vitae, 2006). For an analysis of the work, see
Frederick S. Colby, ‘The Subtleties of the Ascension: Al-Sulamī on the
Miʿrāj of the Prophet Muhammad’, SI 94 (2002): 167–83. For a partial
translation of al-Qushayrī’s Kitāb al-miʿrāj, see Martin Nguyen, ‘The
Confluence and Construction of Traditions: Al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072)
and the Intersection of Qurʾanic Exegesis, Theology and Sufism’ (PhD
dissertation, Harvard University, 2009), 424–32. See also Colby, Night
Journey, 115–17. On the miʿrāj of al-Basṭāmī, see Pierre Lory, ‘Le miʿrāğ
d’Abū Yazīd Basṭāmī’, in Le voyage initiatique en terre d’Islam: ascensions
célestes et itineraires spirituels, ed. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi (Leuven
and Paris: Peeters, 1996), 223–38.
4 Böwering, ‘Word to Vision’, 213.
5 See Colby, Night Journey, 13–28; Böwering, ‘Word to Vision’, 206.
6 Colby, Night Journey; EQ, s.v. ‘Ascension’, by M. Sells, 1:176–81.
7 Angelika Neuwirth, ‘From the Sacred Mosque to the Remote Temple:
Sūrat al-Isrāʾ between Text and Commentary’, in With Reverence for the
Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,

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eds Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Barry D. Walfish and Joseph W. Goering

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 398. See also Colby, Night
Journey, 17–22. Cf. Josef van Ess, ‘Vision and Ascension’, 47–9.
8 For a diachronic comparison of twelve Qurʾan commentaries on Sūrat
al-Najm, see Regula Forster, Methoden mittelalterlicher arabischer
Qurʾānexegese am Beispiel von Q53, 1–18 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag,
2001).
9 Already by the ninth/fifteenth century, Tafsīr al-Jalālayn mentions it as
the only interpretation of Q 53:11. Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī and Jalāl al-Dīn
al-Suyūṭī, Tafsīr al-imāmayn al-Jalālayn (Damascus: Maṭbaʿat al-Shurbajī,
2003), 526–7. The nineteenth-century commentator al-Alūsī under-
stands it as only an angelic manifestation, not mentioning the option of
a divine manifestation at all. Shihāb al-Dīn Maḥmūd al-Ḥusaynī al-Alūsī,
Rūh al-maʿānī fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm wa’l-sabʿa al-mathānī (Beirut:
Dār iḥyāʾ al-turāth al-ʿarabī, n.d.), 27:49. Al-Qāsimī refutes the vision of
God by Muhammad, quoting opinions by Ibn al-Qayyim, Ibn Taymiyya
and Ibn Kathīr. Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī, Maḥāsin al-taʾwīl, eds Aḥmad
b. ʿAlī and Ḥamdī Ṣubḥ (Cairo: Dār al-ḥadīth, 2003), 8:518–23. The
modern scholar al-Ṣābūnī does mention the opinion of a divine mani-
festation but dismisses it. Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Ṣābūnī, Ṣafwat al-tafāsīr
(Istanbul: Dersaadet Kitabevi, n.d.), 3:273. Ibn ʿĀshur only mentions
Gabriel. Muḥammad b. ʿĀshūr, Tafsīr al-taḥrīr wa’l-tanwīr (Tunis: al-Dār
al-tūnisiyya li’l-nashr, 1984), 27:98–100. This looks like a case of the
disappearance of polyvalence in the tafsīr tradition that Norman Calder
described in his famous article ‘Tafsīr from Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr’. It is not
unlikely that these later positions have something to do with the large
influence of al-Zamakhsharī’s commentary on the later tafsīr tradition,
rather than Ibn Kathīr. As a Muʿtazilī, he remained silent on the idea of a
vision of God and only mentioned Gabriel as the object of Muhammad’s
vision. This issue needs deeper study.
10 For collections of transmissions on this specific issue, see Chapter 5, note
9. The historicity of these accounts is outside the scope of this research.
One may presume that they represent later theological debates pro-
jected back onto companions of Muhammad through the isnād system
to give weight and authority to theological positions. For a thorough
analysis of the problem of the historicity of transmissions attributed
to Ibn ʿAbbās, see Harald Motzki, ‘The Origins of Muslim Exegesis: A

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Debate’, in Analysing Muslim Traditions: Studies in Legal, Exegetical and

Maghāzī Ḥadīth, eds Harald Motzki, Nicolet Boekhoff-van der Voort and
Sean W. Anthony (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 231–304.
11 Ibn Ḥajar, Ghunya, 13–14. Van Ess has noted that in the earliest com-
mentaries on Sūrat al-Najm it was not unusual to state that it was
Muhammad who saw God. He even brings up non-canonical sources that
suggest a physical meeting in an earthly paradise at Jerusalem. He points
out that it was the later fear of anthropomorphism and the development
of the doctrine of the absolute transcendence (tanzīh) of God that led to
the interpretation that Muhammad merely saw the angel Gabriel, which
would become the dominant view in later tafsīrs. TG, 4:387–90; van Ess,
‘Vision and Ascension’, 49–53.
12 Q 53:4–7: ‘It is nothing but a revelation revealed; one with mighty
powers taught it to him; one of great strength, who stood straight, while
he was on the highest horizon.’
13 Several scholars in the field of Qurʾanic Studies have argued the contrary
of the tafsīr tradition and have read this passage as a confirmation that
the most early Qurʾanic passages considered revelation to be the result
of a direct meeting between God and Muhammad, only to be superseded
in newer Qurʾanic passages by an understanding of revelation through
an angelic messenger. See Richard Bell, ‘Muhammad’s Visions’, The
Muslim World 24 (1934): 102; TG, 4:387; Colby, Night Journey, 17–20;
Williams, ‘Tajallī wa-Ruʾya’, 101–9. Nicolai Sinai has recently argued the
contrary, stating that Q 81:19–25 is earlier than Q 53. Nicolai Sinai, ‘An
Interpretation of Sūrat al-Najm (Q.53)’, JQS 13, no. 2 (2011): 7–9.
14 Muḥammad al-Fīrūzābādī, Tanwīr al-miqbās min tafsīr Ibn ʿAbbās,
trans. Mokrane Guezzou (Amman: Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for
Islamic Thought, 2007), 620–2; Mujāhid b. Jabr, Tafsīr Mujāhid b. Jabr,
ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Salām Abū’l-Nayl (Cairo: Dār al-fikr al-islāmī
al-ḥadītha, 1989), 625–6; Muqātil b. Sulaymān, Tafsīr Muqātil b.
Sulaymān, ed. ʿAbd Allāh Maḥmūd Shaḥāta (Cairo: al-Hayʾat al-miṣriyya
al-ʿāmma li’l-kitāb, 1988), 4:159; Thaʿlabī, Kashf, 9:136–7; Māwardī,
Nukat, 5:391–2; Wāḥidī, Basīṭ, 21:12–15; Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, 3:481–3;
Maybudī, Kashf, 9:359–60; Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fol. 134a.
15 Fīrūzābādī, Tafsīr Ibn ʿAbbās, 621–2.
16 Mujāhid, Tafsīr Mujāhid, 625–6.
17 Muqātil, Tafsīr Muqātil, 4:160. This interpretation of the verse has also

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found its way into Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī in the form of a much-discussed

hadith. See Qāsimī, Maḥāsin al-taʾwīl, 8:521.
18 Thaʿlabī, Kashf, 9:137–9; Māwardī, Nukat, 5:392–3; Wāḥidī, Basīṭ,
21:16–21.
19 Maybudī, Kashf, 9:359–60.
20 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fol. 134a.
21 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 2:284–5; Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, 3:481–3; Maybudī, Kashf,
9:378–9; Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fol. 134a; Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 3:357.
22 Māwardī, Nukat, 5:393–4; Maybudī, Kashf, 9:359.
23 These minor positions have been left out of Table 7.2 for reasons of
convenience.
24 Thaʿlabī, Kashf, 9:142.
25 Here we will leave the Laṭāʾif al-miʿrāj out of our analysis, since our main
focus is on the genealogy and originality of ideas in the tafsīr tradition.
For an analysis of its content, see Sulamī, Subtleties of the Ascension;
Colby, ‘Subtleties’; Böwering, ‘From Word to Vision’.
26 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 2:283.
27 Ibid., 2:285. See Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Tustarī (trans. Keeler and Keeler), 212:
‘At the witnessing (mushāhada) of his Lord, through the vision (baṣar) of
his heart as a right opposite encounter (kifāḥ).’
28 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 2:285.
29 Ibid. Translation from Mayer, Spiritual Gems, 154.
30 Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 2:285.
31 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, 3:482; Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 2:284.
32 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, 3:481–2; Nguyen, ‘Confluence of Traditions’, 421.
33 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, 3:483; Nguyen, ‘Confluence of Traditions’, 422–3.
34 This means that al-Qushayrī also read k-dh-b with a shadda.
35 Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif, 3:483.
36 The best example of this is his Shikāyat ahl al-sunna. ʿAbd al-Karīm b.
Hawāzim al-Qushayrī, ‘Shikāyat ahl al-sunna’, in al-Rasāʾil al-Qushayri-
yya, ed. Muḥammad Ḥasan (Karachi: al-Maʿhad al-markazī li’l-abḥāth
al-islāmiyya, 1964), 1–49.
37 See Chapter 5.
38 Maybudi, Kashf, 9:359–60.
39 Ibid., 5:504.
40 Ibid., 9:374.
41 See Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics, 244–7.

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42 Ibid., 9:378–9.
43 Ibid., 5:501.
44 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fol. 134a.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid., fols 133b–134a.
47 Ibid.
48 This is an implicit reference to the Qurʾanic notion that God is ‘closer
to him than his jugular vein’ (Q 50:16), and that Muhammad should tell
people who ask him about God that He is close (Q 2:186). Based on these
verses, nearness is considered to be one of the attributes of God.
49 Daylamī, ‘Tafsīr al-Daylamī’, fols 133b–134a.
50 Ernst, Ruzbihan, 61.
51 Ibid.
52 ‘I saw my Lord in the most beautiful form’; ‘I saw my Lord with my eye
and heart’; ‘I saw my Lord upon the city market.’ Baqlī, Mashrab, 10, 105,
221–2, 256. These hadith are not considered to be canonical, but are
widespread in Sufi circles. See Murata, ‘God is Beautiful’, 202–6.
53 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 2:421.
54 Ibid.
55 The use of this term by Rūzbihān in his commentary is remarkable. In his
other works he shows no concern in explaining this term, and it seems
that it was not part of his usual technical vocabulary.
56 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 2:346–7.
57 Rūzbihān describes the station of ittiṣāf as follows: ‘When God manifests
Himself to the heart of the lover through the splendour of the attrib-
utes, the lover benefits by the condition of intimacy and taste (sharṭ
al-muʿāshara wa’l-dhawq) from the vision of some light of every attrib-
ute. He forms his character by it and he takes His attribute as his attrib-
ute after the created has gone into the beginningless and becomes lordly
(rabbānī), as God said: “And be lordly (wa-kūnū rabbāniyyīn)” (Q 3:79),
and as the prophet said, blessings and peace be upon him: “Form your
character according to the character of God.” And the knower said: “Ittiṣāf
only occurs together with the taste of selfhood (anāniyya), because the
human attribute has left and the attributes of Godliness have remained.”’
Baqlī, Mashrab, 89.
58 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 2:346–7.
59 Ittiḥād would be the only word in Sufism that truly signifies the unio

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 a vision at the utmost boundary | 255

mystica that is so often held to be the exemplary goal of mysticism. Other

words like wiṣāl or jamʿ are often misleadingly translated as such. See
von Schlegell, ‘Translating Sufism’, 583–4. The term is practically absent
from early Sufism. Al-Qushayrī does not discuss the term in his Risāla,
nor does al-Sarrāj in his Kitāb al-lumaʿ; al-Hujwīrī does discuss the term
in the section on jamʿ and tafriqa, denouncing the concept: ‘It is impos-
sible that God should be mingled (imtizāj) with created beings or made
one (ittiḥād) with His works or become incarnate (ḥāll) in things: God
is exalted far above that, and far above that which the heretics ascribe
to Him.’ Nicholson, Kashf al-maḥjūb, 254. See also EI2, s.v. ‘Ittiḥād’, by R.
Nicholson; G. C. Anawati, 4:282–3.
60 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 2:347.
61 This paraphrases Q 53:8–9.
62 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 2:347.
63 Rūzbihān does not quote it, but this idea is related to a ḥadīth qudsī ­– a
saying of God, related in the words of the Prophet – attributed to Abū
Ḥurayra much quoted in Sufi circles, commonly known as the ‘hadith
of supererogatory acts’ (nawāfil). The hadith states: ‘When I love him,
I become his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees,
his hand with which he strikes, and his foot with which he walks.’ See
Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, 43.
64 Baqlī, ʿArāʾis, 2:347–8.
65 Ibid., 2:348.
66 Ibid.
67 Ibid., 3:357.
68 Ibid.
69 Ibid.
70 Ibid., 3:359.
71 Ibid.

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8
Conclusion

At the outset of this study, we formulated two complementary objec-

tives. On the one hand, we expressed the wish to construct a history
of Sufi eschatology using Qurʾan commentaries as our main source.
Our two main hypotheses concerning Sufi eschatology has been that
the vision of God is the most central theme for Sufi imaginations of
the hereafter, and that Sufis do not strictly uphold the dunyā–ākhira
divide. We expected that although Sufis leave a diachronic conception
of history and eschatology intact, it goes hand in hand with a syn-
chronic understanding of the dunyā–ākhira relationship. The bound-
ary between this world and the otherworld can be crossed by seeing
God in this-worldly life, a ‘taste’ of the vision in the world to come.
On the other hand, by using this thematic framework, we had the
ambition to generate new knowledge about the genre of Sufi Qurʾan
commentaries in the Islamic Earlier Middle Period (950­–1250 ce).
Concerning Sufi Qurʾan commentaries, we were mainly interested
to see to what extent Sufi commentaries are genealogical, given the
popular image of Sufism being ‘experiential’ and thus more subjective
and original.
In this concluding chapter, I deal with each of these questions
and hypotheses in the order in which I have introduced them in the
preceding paragraphs. I end by suggesting three avenues for future

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research: the study of both Sufi eschatology and Sufi tafsīr in the later
centuries; the need for critical editions of Sufi Qurʾan commentaries;
and possible theoretical and methodological advances.
Sufi Qurʾan commentaries have proved to be a useful and varied
source for the reconstruction of a (partial) history of Sufi eschatology.
It must be said, however, that the expectation that verses on Paradise
and Hell would provoke a lot of commentary, and could thus be com-
plementary to the scattered discussions in Sufi handbooks, was only
partly justified. Just as Sufi authors hardly included eschatological
ideas in their handbooks on Sufism, they also mostly skipped those
verses that deal with Paradise and Hell in their commentaries. When
they did comment on these verses, it was rather to make a point on
hierarchies of nearness and vision than to elaborate on understand-
ings of reward and punishment. The study of these commentaries has
thus mainly further corroborated the findings of El-Saleh and Lange,
that there is a relative disregard, and in some cases even contempt,
among Sufis for the rewards and punishments of Paradise and Hell –
without denying their physical reality – motivated by a God-centred
understanding of the hereafter.1 Early on in our study it was already
becoming clear that an analysis of Sufi eschatology would mainly
entail looking at the concepts of nearness to and vision of God. If our
authors were at all motivated by thoughts of reward or punishment,
what interested them was the reward of nearness to and vision of
God or the punishment of being cut off from God and veiled from the
vision. Fear of the physical punishments of Hell or hope for physical
rewards of Paradise were generally considered as a veil separating
the seeker from God. In some cases, motivation by way of reward
or punishment was even seen as a form of ascribing partners to God
(shirk).
We could not distinguish a clear linear historical development in
the Sufi ideas on eschatology. True, all five commentaries proved to
be very varied in style and content. However, it is difficult to explain
this difference and variety as a linear development that happened in
parallel with broader developments within Sufism. An example is the
stratification of the rewards of Paradise. As we have seen, this idea

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is most strongly present in Maybudī, strong enough to consider it a

noteworthy change in content compared with the preceding works.
The idea was not new, however, and does not come at the end of a
clear linear historical development. It can also be found in sayings
collected by al-Sulamī and in the work of al-Qushayrī. The same can be
said for other salient themes: although they may be more dominant
in one work than in the other, they are mostly variants of themes
already existent from an early stage, expressed in a style typical for
the author in question. An exception to this is Rūzbihān’s ideas on
mercy and relief for the inhabitants of Hell. Rūzbihān’s vision on this
issue has no precedent, and varieties on this theme cannot be found
in the earlier commentaries. Here his position does mirror broader
developments in Sufism: Rūzbihān’s position on the non-perpetuity
of the punishment of Hell has striking similarities with the ideas of
his contemporary Ibn al-ʿArabī. The idea of manifestations of mercy
in Hell was relatively new in Sufism at the time of Rūzbihān, and he
was the first of the commentators to incorporate this into his Qurʾan
commentary.
We have also seen that the boundary between this world and
the otherworld was generally imagined to be porous and crossable,
mainly by means of Sufi stations and states, with communion (waṣla),
nearness and vision being the most prominent. To visually capture the
structure of the relationship between this world and the otherworld,
we proposed the diagram shown in Figure 8.1.
Taking the prophets as paradigmatic seekers, this scheme –
although not to be found in every commentary – was useful to come
to an understanding of discussions on the vision of God in this world
and the otherworld. Based on this larger scheme, Table 8.1 gives a
simplified but clear overview of the opinions of our authors on the
theme of vision.
Is the theme of nearness to and vision of God indeed as pervasive
as I expected it to be in the introductory chapter? For the greater part,
yes. The relative dominance or absence of the theme of vision appears
to be one of the most significant differences between two not mutu-
ally exclusive tendencies within Sufism: on the one hand, the tendency

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 conclusion | 259

Figure 8.1 Eschatological structure and crossings of the prophets

that stresses passionate love (ʿishq) and longing (shawq) for God and
experiential knowledge (maʿrifa) of God; on the other, a tendency
that stresses good character and religious discipline. Most authors
are closer to the former trend than to the latter. Only al-Qushayrī is
not genuinely interested in the topic of the vision of God, in the same
way in which the themes of love and longing are not as pervasively
present in his work compared with the other works. He can thus be
considered a representative of the second trend, although he is not
always as sober in his style and content as he is generally perceived
to have been. Especially in the case of the request of Moses to see God,
which he considers not to have been granted, al-Qushayrī shows an
ecstatic side that is not typical of him, interpreting Moses’s request
as ensuing from passionate love and longing for God evoked by hear-

Table 8.1 Visions of God

Vision of Vision of Vision of Vision of Vision of
God in the God in this God by God by God by
hereafter world Adam Moses Muhammad
Sulamī Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Qushayrī Yes No No No
Maybudī Yes No Yes No Yes
Daylamī Yes Yes Yes Yes
Rūzbihān Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

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ing Him. Although he does not interpret it as a fulfilled request, his

discussion of Moses’s request does confirm the entangledness of the
themes of love, longing and vision. For the other authors, the theme
is present to differing degrees. The commentaries of al-Sulamī and
Rūzbihān stand out in that the theme of vision is dominant. It is no
coincidence that they are also the sources that contain the largest
amount of commentary inspired by the themes of love and longing.
The same can be said for Maybudī. Although he generally denies this-
worldly vision, this-worldly longing for the vision of the hereafter is
pervasive and a leading motif in his understanding of the meaning of
this-worldly life. The otherworldly journey of Muhammad, in which
he sees God, is even mentioned as the main reason for creation and
the banishment of Adam. While al-Daylamī gives a lot of space to
defending this-worldly vision of the heart in his other works, this is
not equally present in his commentary, except for some passages that
he seemingly copied from his other treatises. Al-Daylamī does not
attach the theme of vision to prophetology very prominently. While
some modest commentary is given on the modes of vision by Moses
and Muhammad, the story of Adam hardly provokes commentary, and
is not related to the vision of God.
Can we now reach a typology of this-worldly visions of God
in Sufism? Can our five commentators neatly be classified using
Wolfson’s typology of contemplative-introvertive and contemplative-
cognitive vision? There appeared to be a great diversity in approach
to the vision of God, with some shared structures. All described modes
of this-worldly vision can be categorised as contemplative visions by
the eye of the heart: although not denying the theoretical possibility,
none of the Sufi commentators claimed an ocular vision of God to
have actually taken place in this world. Muhammad admittedly was
considered by some to have seen God by the physical eye. This physi-
cal vision may have taken place in dunyā in the sense of time, in this-
worldly pre-eschatological life, but not in a spatial sense: Muhammad
travelled to the otherworld in order to see God. Something similar
can be said about the conceptualisation of contemplative visions like
Moses seeing God. Even though there was consensus that this vision

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was a contemplative vision, those authors who claimed Moses saw

God let him first pass beyond the boundaries of his human existence.
Only outside his human form, after having transgressed the bounda-
ries of this-worldly restraints, was he able to see God. All authors thus
seemed to agree that contemplatively seeing God is something that
surpasses human form. Sometimes this act of seeing was conceived
of as a state of annihilation ( fanāʾ), or in the example of Rūzbihān as
unification (ittiḥād) with God. Does this make it an introvertive rather
than cognitive vision, to use the distinction that Wolfson makes?2 Are
they purely intellectual, beyond image and form, or are they within
the phenomenological parameters of human experience and lan-
guage? This distinction may be more difficult to uphold. Although
many proposed modes of contemplative vision are described as
taking place after having moved beyond human form, the descrip-
tions are still primarily sensory and seem to be conceived as human
experiences. This is most clear in the case of indirect visions of God
through creation, a vision of His attributes (ṣifāt) and acts (afʿāl) as
manifested in the world, rather than His essence. They fall within the
realm of human perception, but still do not attribute a form or image
to God – the intellectual vision of God is deduced from and mediated
by the sensory perception of creation. Even the somewhat extreme
case of Rūzbihān’s idea that Muhammad seeing and hearing God is
actually God seeing and hearing Himself in a state of unification with
Muhammad may be said to be conceived within parameters of human
experience. God, holds Rūzbihān, perceives Himself through the ears
and eyes of Muhammad.
How did the inward (bāṭin) or allusive (ishārī) approach to the
text of the Qurʾan relate to interpretations of the outward (ẓāhir)
meanings of the Qurʾan? Did these inward and allusive interpreta-
tions divert radically from conventional understandings or did they
accommodate these understandings? The claim by Steven Katz that
mysticism generally is conservative in its nature and cannot be under-
stood in isolation from its larger religious discursive context seems to
apply to our Sufi authors too. Our commentaries generally show great
awareness of and respect for theological positions involved in the

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matters of their discussion, and do not exhibit a tendency to contra-

dict outward (ẓāhir), conventional understandings of Qurʾanic verses.
This holds equally true for their understandings of the vision of God.
While some of the positions taken may at first be seen as going against
the grain, closer inspection reveals that the doctrines upheld by their
institutional surroundings are always implicitly present in their
works and determine their conceptions of the vision of God in this
world and the otherworld. They consciously employ themes and dis-
cussions present within the broader Islamic tradition to support their
claims, and seem eager to respect the theological boundaries of their
age. For example, the solution of a contemplative vision by the eye of
the heart that the authors in favour of a this-worldly vision propa-
gate correspond with the exegetical and theological discussions on
Sūrat al-Najm. The difference of opinion on the modality of the vision
described in Sūrat al-Najm, thus, was a window of opportunity for Sufi
authors to legitimise their ideas of indirect modes of vision during
this-worldly life. They could thus give legitimacy to their mystical
longing for the vision of God while remaining within the boundaries
of a solid (mostly Ashʿarī) theological framework that they without
exception adhered to. All authors remained close to the centre and
its institutions, and wished to remain so. Their mystical ideas were
rooted in and determined by their broader religious understanding.
As for the issue of genealogy and originality, we can conclude
that the four Qurʾan commentaries following on from al-Sulamī all
contain elements of both genealogy and originality. These elements
appear not to be mutually exclusive and could easily coexist within
one and the same commentary. There appears to be a great diversity
in style and content, and genealogy generally does not determine the
structure and content of the commentaries as much as is generally the
case in their conventional counterparts. When earlier authorities are
quoted, it is in a rather loose, non-binding and unstructured manner,
and often only after the author has mapped out his own positions and
reflections. Earlier sayings and opinions do not steer new discussions
into a specific direction, and although a commentator could incor-
porate earlier material as he saw fit, he did not necessarily feel the

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need to express his own thought only against the backdrop of earlier
discussions. Sufi tafsīr, in sum, seems to have been less ‘conservative’
in its nature than its conventional counterparts and to leave more
room for the individual author: there seems to have been more room
for innovation and subjective understandings of the verse.
Now, what is the way forward for the study of Sufi eschatology
and Sufi Qurʾan commentaries? For Sufi eschatology, a longue durée
history that also focuses on later periods would be a worthwhile and
promising enterprise. Lange’s overview does not reach far enough
into later periods and stops at approximately the thirteenth century
with figures like Rūmī, Ibn al-ʿArabī and al-Nasafī. El-Saleh even con-
siders the later periods irrelevant, adhering to a view of decadence
and decline in later Islamic history that has long been dominant in the
historiography of Islamic civilisation. This notion of a cultural decline
in later Islamic history is being more and more revised in Islamic
Studies, and it is only logical that later developments in Sufi eschatol-
ogy up to the present time should be reevaluated as well. As noted in
Chapter 1, there are still significant developments in later periods that
remain largely unexplored.3 For this goal, Sufi Qurʾan commentaries
of these later periods may prove to be a rich and useful source.
In order to include Sufi Qurʾan commentaries of the later periods
and to make longue durée comparisons of commentaries on specific
verses, more critical editions of Sufi works of tafsīr urgently need to
be published. This is a tremendous task that does not quite seem to
be in sync with the larger developments within Islamic Studies. It is
telling that the only critical edition available to me besides Böwering’s
edition of al-Sulamī’s Ziyādāt was an unpublished PhD dissertation
from Turkey. These critical editions should also lead to more in-depth
studies of the individual works of tafsīr and their authors. The cur-
rent study could only be undertaken because of the recent valuable
publications of such monographs within this specific period. The most
urgent task, in my opinion, is the publication of a critical edition of
Rūzbihān’s ʿArāʾis al-bayān, after which an in-depth study and mono-
graph on this rich source would become possible, comparable to the
works of Nguyen and Keeler.4 No other source in this study appeared

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to be equally complex, and no other contained so much creative think-

ing and original material. Moreover, Rūzbihān’s commentary seems to
foreshadow several themes that later become important in the school
of Ibn al-ʿArabī. I believe an encompassing study of his tafsīr may be
very helpful for a better understanding of the shift from the period
that is often called ‘classical’ Sufism to the period of the great ‘schools’
of Sufism. In addition, the study of al-Daylamī’s tafsīr in relation to
his other works deserves scholarly attention. Although he admit-
tedly is an obscure author and may indeed be considered a ‘minor’
figure, his thought is remarkable enough to deserve deeper analysis.
Publications of his Qurʾan commentary and his other treatises with a
content analysis may well elucidate strands of Sufism that have not
yet become a part of the Islamic or academic ‘canon’ of Sufi authors
and ideas.
Furthermore, I believe there is still a world to win in tafsīr studies
with respect to methodology. Now that the study of tafsīr is gaining in
scholarly popularity and the contours of a separate discipline of study
are becoming visible, it may be the right moment to become more
innovative and systematic in methodology as well, especially with
regard to the issue of the genealogical nature of the genre, where a lot
more research should be done based on a more clearly defined and
systematic methodology. ‘The process of citing authorities and pro-
viding multiple readings is . . . a means to establish the individuality or
the artistry of a given mufassir’5 and deserves a systematic methodol-
ogy that helps to carefully trace and reconstruct lines of ­transmission
and dissemination of exegetical opinions, and place them within
typologies of exegesis and broader schools of thought. This study has
only partially achieved such a systematic reading, partly due to a lack
of good examples to follow in this particular respect. The recent trend
in Islamic Studies to delve into late medieval commentary traditions
may offer a suitable methodological framework for future studies,
with adaptations and innovations to fit the particularities of the tafsīr
tradition.6 It is my hope that the academic study of tafsīr literature
will soon become large enough as a field to take this next step in
methodological innovation as a communal enterprise.

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 conclusion | 265

Another point of attention is the application of theories and

approaches developed in Religious Studies to these Sufi sources and
the ideas reflected in them. It can be fairly stated that the field of
Islamic Studies lags behind other areas of study in Religious Studies
in this respect. Now that more and more texts are available to us,
and many of them are covered in excellent historicising studies, the
time is right to not only engage with these texts by philological and
historical methods, but to cautiously go a step beyond that. In this
study, I have used some elements of theories developed in the study
of Jewish mysticism, most notably by Stephen Katz and Elliot Wolfson,
but this can be pushed much further. A good example would be the
vivid field of body and sensory studies within Religious Studies, and
more broadly in the Humanities and Anthropology. It would be very
worthwhile to work on a more encompassing study of ideas on the
senses (both spiritual and physical) in Sufism. The study before you
may be considered a launch pad for such larger enterprises.
To conclude, the study of tafsīr in general, and the study of Sufi
tafsīr in particular, has only recently really taken off. I hope that I have
been able to give a modest ruʾya into the great potentiality of this field.
It is only a dhawq of the many fruits that the branches of the tree of
tafsīr have to offer. There are still many gardens to explore.

Notes
1 El-Saleh, Vie future, 91–111; Lange, Paradise and Hell, ch. 7.
2 Wolfson, Speculum, 58–61.
3 See Chapter 1, note 41.
4 Nguyen, Sufi Master; Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics.
5 Calder, ‘Tafsīr from Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr’, 103–4.
6 Eric van Lit, for example, has been very innovative in his methodology
of reading the commentary tradition on al-Suhrawardī. With a highly
technical and at times quantitative method he has shown how textual
relationships over larger time spans can be reconstructed by a systematic
and almost mathematical comparison of form, style and textual content of
a sequence of commentaries on a shared text. Such innovations deserve
to be taken seriously by the field of tafsīr studies as well, and may give a
boost to our understanding of what Calder calls ‘a declaration of loyalty’

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through the process of citing authorities and providing multiple read-

ings. Calder, ‘Tafsīr from Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr’, 103–4; Lambertus W. C.
van Lit, The World of Image in Islamic Philosophy: Ibn Sīnā, Suhrawardī,
Shahrazūrī, and Beyond (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017).

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 bibliography | 267

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 Index

Adam, 3, 94, 191, 195n Ateș, Süleyman, 18

banishment of, 23, 25, 95, 123, attributes (ṣifāt) of God, 58, 99, 108,
135–73, 201, 214, 239, 260 109, 110, 116, 143, 152, 153, 154,
in the Qurʾan, 137–8 159, 168n, 172n, 187, 189–90,
seeing God, 143–6, 148–60, 259 199n, 214, 218, 220, 226n, 239,
sin of, 138–42, 144–8, 151, 155, 243–6, 254n, 261
158–61, 165n, 166n, 169 audition (samāʿ), 49, 89, 103, 104, 105,
ahl al-ḥadīth see traditionism and 129, 148, 156, 163, 191, 202, 203,
traditionists 206, 208–11, 214–15, 219, 223n,
Ākhira, 14, 33n, 84, 87, 105–6, 108, 113, 224n, 244–6, 255, 261
122, 123n, 130n, 132n, 160, 196n, al-Azdī, al-Ḥusayn, 46
256
ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, 48–9, 68, 180–1, 196n Baghdad, 46, 47, 55, 92, 94
angels, 88, 103, 116, 137, 145–8, 150–4, Sufism of, 14–15, 43–4, 47, 53
158, 171n, 179, 180, 191, 216, 221, baqāʾ (subsistence), 15, 116, 210, 213,
226n, 229, 232–6, 247, 251n, 252n 243
al-Anṣārī, ʿAbd Allāh, 58, 60, 69, 78n, al-Baqlī see Rūzbihān
101, 128, 149–50, 232 barzakh see limbo
anthropology, 5–6, 135, 139, 152, 265 al-Basṭāmī, Abū Yazīd, 105, 133n, 180,
anthropomorphism, 58, 127n, 171, 196n, 198n, 228, 250n
177–9, 183, 193n, 232, 250n, 252n bāṭin (inward), 18, 48–50, 53, 92, 222,
Asad, Talal, 12, 31n 261
ascension see miʿrāj Böwering, Gerhard, 15–16, 23, 25, 35n,
asceticism see renunciation 53, 61, 63, 64, 80–1n, 118, 197–8n,
Ashʿarism and Ashʿarīs, 11, 41, 42, 54, 223n, 228, 263
55, 57, 58, 71n, 73n, 76n, 107, Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ),
131n, 140, 166n, 178, 184, 185, 16–17
188, 189, 190, 194n, 198n, 207, Bundār b. al-Ḥusayn, 235, 249
208, 214, 237, 262
al-Ashʿarī, Abū’l-Ḥasan, 92, 165n, 177, Calder, Norman, 11, 20, 251n, 265–6n
179, 205 Chittick, William, 128n, 170n

288

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Christianity and Christians, 41, 135–6, essence of God (dhāt), 93, 114, 118,
164n; see also mysticism, Christian 153–4, 163, 187, 189, 190, 214,
communion (waṣl or wiṣāl), 3, 103, 112, 218–20, 239, 244–6, 261; see also
114, 116, 118, 121, 129n, 155, 156, manifestation
157, 162, 163, 216, 217, 239, 241, essentialism, 6, 8, 11–12, 29
258 experiential knowledge (maʿrifa), 10,
constructivism, 4, 7, 10, 175 15, 23, 49, 50, 56, 67, 91, 92, 95, 98,
contemptus ultramundi, 98, 123n 104, 107, 112, 115, 116, 117, 118,
124, 148, 152, 154, 160, 182, 213,
al-Dabbāgh, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, 32n 236, 243, 245, 259
al-Daqqāq, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan, 43, 54, 55,
65, 69 fanāʾ (annihilation), 116, 147, 213,
al-Dārānī, Abū Sulaymān, 107, 158, 179, 217–18, 220, 222, 243, 261
223n Fire, 88–91, 95–9, 101, 102, 105, 106,
al-Darwājikī, 36n 108, 109–13, 131, 137, 182, 188,
Day of Judgement, 14–15, 23, 90, 98, 99, 284; see also Hell
101, 105–6, 113, 144, 177, 196n; foretaste, 16, 26, 115, 201, 215, 228
see also resurrection friend of God (walī/awliyāʾ), 1, 28n, 49,
Day of Resurrection see Day of 56, 62, 67, 86–7, 136, 217, 223n
Judgement friendship (dūstī), 136, 148–50, 223n
Day of the Covenant (rūz-i alast), 14–15,
25, 148, 163, 228 Gabriel, 229–38, 247–8, 251n, 252n
al-Daylamī, Shams al-Dīn, 18, 22, 33n, al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid, 17, 32n, 40,
37n, 39, 61–5, 68–70, 79–81n, 45, 55, 61, 73n, 130n, 143, 178,
104–8, 109, 113, 122, 130–2n, 151, 194n
170n, 184, 185–7, 192, 198–9n, al-Ghazālī, Aḥmad, 40, 55, 59
217–18, 225n, 230–4, 239–40, 243, Ghaznavids, 41, 42, 46
245, 247–9, 259, 260, 264 God
al-Dhahabī, Muḥammad Ḥusayn, 17, acts (afʿāl) of, 99, 189, 218, 220, 241,
34n 244, 261
dhāt see essence of God attributes (ṣifāt) of see attributes of
dhawq (taste), 1, 254n, 265 God
Dhū’l-Nūn al-Miṣrī, 52, 75, 87–8, 124n, encounter (liqāʾ) with, 3, 15, 26, 89,
129n, 198n, 223n 90, 112, 188, 201–26, 227–55
Dunyā, 14, 33n, 87, 93, 105–6, 108, 113, essence (dhāt) of see essence of
123, 130n, 132n, 143, 159, 196n, God
256, 260 experiential knowledge (maʿrifa) of
see experiential knowledge
ecstatic Sufism, 47, 57, 66, 67, 68, 78n, friend (walī/awliyāʾ) of see friend of
93, 94, 97, 118, 162–4, 170n, God
187–8, 208, 215, 219, 222, 259; see knower (ʿārif) of see knower
also wajd longing for see longing (shawq)
eisegesis, 17, 120 love for see love, passionate (ʿishq)
Eliade, Mircea, 162, 164n, 170n, 175 meeting with (liqāʾ)
El-Saleh, Soubhi, 13–14, 84–7, 257, nearness to see nearness
263 seeing see vision
Enlightenment, 8–10 wariness of (taqwā), 86, 87, 99, 102,
Ernst, Carl, 7, 128n, 153, 170, 172n, 187, 113–14, 124–5n, 151, 283
189, 191, 226n, 240 Godlas, Alan, 18, 35n, 36n, 37n
eschatology, 2, 5, 13–16, 19, 21, 24–5, Goldziher, Ignaz, 4, 16–17, 27n
31–3n, 83–134, 143, 174, 194n, Gramlich, Richard, 28n, 184, 197n, 212,
256–7, 263 223n

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hadith, 11, 46, 47, 48, 51, 52, 54, 58, Ibn ʿAbbās, 180, 223n, 230–4, 238, 251n
64, 66, 76, 107, 127n, 130, 133, Ibn al-ʿArabī, 17, 32n, 33n, 84, 123,
138, 140, 165n, 166n, 171n, 177, 132n, 133n, 134n, 183, 221, 258,
178, 180–1, 186, 191, 192n, 193n, 263, 264
198n, 203, 229, 240, 253n, 254n, Ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Ādamī, 48, 52, 76n, 94–5,
255n 107, 141–2, 144, 149, 182, 198n,
hajj, 55, 87–8 217, 228, 235, 236, 249
ḥāl see state Ibn Barrajān, ʿAbd al-Salām, 35–6n
al-Ḥallāj, Manṣūr, 47, 94, 168n Ibn Ḥabīb, 45
halting place (maqām) see station Ibn Ḥanbal, Aḥmad, 193n, 198n
Hamadan, 39, 62–4, 80n Ibn Karrām, 45
al-Hamadhānī, ʿAyn al-Quḍāt, 40 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, 168n, 194n,
Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār, 44, 73n 205, 251
Ḥanafism and Ḥanafīs, 41–2, 45, 46, 52, Ibn Qutayba, 60
54, 73n ijāza, 43, 46, 51, 52
Ḥanbalism and Ḥanbalīs, 11, 58, 60, Ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ see Brethren of Purity
78–9n, 94, 140, 142, 177–8, 194n, iltibās, 189–90, 219, 246
205, 237 incarnation and incarnationists see
al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, 85, 141, 167n, 207, indwelling
238 indwelling, 65, 179, 182, 191, 240, 243,
hearing see audition 255n
heaven (samāʾ), 111, 139, 148, 163, al-Iṣfahānī, Abū Nuʿaym, 40
169n, 177, 242 ishāra (allusion) see tafsīr by allusion
heavenly journey see miʿrāj ʿishq see love [for God]
Hell, 3, 13–14, 32n, 33n, 70, 83–91, Islamic Earlier Middle Period, 2, 24, 39,
96–7, 100, 102, 105, 108–11, 256
120–3, 124n, 126n, 132n, 133n, Islamic Studies, 11, 19, 35n, 263–5
134n, 143, 180, 227–8, 235, 257–8; Ismāʿīlism and Ismāʿīlī (bāṭinī), 17, 77n,
see also Fire 165n, 186
Herat, 39, 40, 58, 78 isrāʾ see night journey
hereafter, 2, 3, 5, 6, 13, 14, 16, 23–6, isthmus see limbo
32n, 33n, 70, 83–134, 144, 150, ittiḥād, 116, 240–6, 248, 254n, 255n,
162, 163, 188, 195, 201, 256, 261
259–60
hierarchies in, 5–6, 13, 93, 99, 100–4, jabarūt, 10, 62, 114, 130, 155, 172, 221,
105, 121–2, 129n, 257 226, 241
reward in, 3, 13, 84–6, 90, 91, 93, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, 49, 52, 56, 68, 75n,
95–104, 107, 112–14, 121–2, 76n, 86–7, 89, 98, 144, 149, 162,
131n, 143, 150, 177, 178, 186, 209–11, 213n, 217, 228, 235, 236,
257 249
punishment in, 3, 13, 84–5, 91, Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad, 48, 75n
97–101, 104–12, 121, 123, 133n, Jahannam, 111, 112, 133n
186, 257–8 Jamāʿī-Sunnism see Sunnism and Sunni
al-Ḥīrī, Abū ʿUthmān, 46 Islam
historicism, 4, 10, 27n James, William, 9
Hodgson, Marshall, 2, 39, 63 jihad, 180
al-Hujwīrī, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī, 13, al-Jīlānī, ʿAbd al-Qādir, 36n
183,199n, 203, 223n, 255n jinn, 148
ḥulūl and ḥulūliyya see indwelling Judaism and Jews, 41, 135, 202; see also
humankind, 3, 15, 25, 93, 94, 123, mysticism, Jewish
135–7, 140–3, 146, 148, 150, 152, al-Junayd al-Baghdādī, 46, 47, 49, 52, 55,
160, 162, 163, 166n 92, 93–4, 101, 182, 198–9n

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Kaʿba, 88, 154 manifestation (tajallī) of God, 112, 116,

al-Kalābādhī, Abū Bakr, 181, 195n, 117, 123, 134n, 153, 156, 158, 159,
196n, 199n, 237 163, 182–3, 185, 190, 191, 199n,
kalām (theological reasoning), 7, 54, 64, 203–4, 206, 207, 209, 213, 221, 234
78n, 168n, 194n, 202, 232 of God’s acts (afʿāl), 187, 189, 220,
Karamustafa, Ahmet, 14–16, 23, 25, 261
194n of God’s attributes (ṣifāt), 109, 110,
Karrāmiyya, 41–5, 71n, 74n, 198n 111, 115, 143, 148, 172n, 187,
kashf see unveiling 189, 199, 213–14, 218, 220, 221,
Katz, Steven, 4, 16, 29n, 261, 265 226, 241, 254n, 258, 261; see also
Keeler, Annabel, 22, 35n, 37n, 58, 78n, attributes of God
128n, 148, 150, 216, 263 of God’s essence (dhāt), 93, 114, 118,
khānaqāh, 40, 43, 44, 74n 153–4, 163, 187, 189, 190, 214,
al-Kharrāz, Abū Saʿīd, 52, 92–3, 126n, 218–20, 239, 244–6, 261; see also
181, 182, 195n, 198–9n, 211, essence of God
217 maqām see station
Khurasan, 33–4n, 40–5, 47, 53, 58–9 maʿrifa see experiential knowledge of
King, Richard, 8–9 Marv, 40, 48, 58, 143
knower (ʿārif) 96, 103, 105, 107, 113, Massignon, Louis, 16–17, 75n, 123n
115–17, 124, 190, 213, 223n, 254 al-Māturīdī, Abū Manṣūr, 177, 205
Māturīdism and Māturīdīs, 11, 166n,
al-Lamaṭī, Aḥmad, 32n 178
Lange, Christian, 2, 13–14, 83–4, 85, 86, al-Māwardī, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī, 139, 167,
121, 123n, 132n, 134n, 257, 263 206, 207, 224n, 231–4
limbo (barzakh), 32n, 84, 98, 128n Maybudī, Rashīd al-Dīn, 22, 33n, 37n,
listening see audition 39, 57–60, 61, 67, 68–70, 78n, 82n,
longing [for God] (shawq), 3, 13, 95, 98, 100–4, 105, 113, 121, 140, 143,
104, 111, 112, 114, 116, 118, 121, 148–51, 153, 160–4, 184, 215–17,
131n, 148–50, 153, 155–6, 162, 219, 221–3, 231–4, 237–9, 247–9,
170n, 199n, 206, 214, 216, 223n, 258–60
241, 259–60, 262 McAuliffe, Jane Dammen, 20–1, 35n
longue durée history, 4, 21, 32, 263 miʿrāj, 26, 108, 126n, 163–4, 177, 181,
Lordship (rubūbiyya), 15, 115, 116, 146, 192, 196n, 203, 221, 223n, 227–55
152, 154, 156, 157, 158, 159, 209 Moses, 3, 23, 25, 89, 105, 136, 140,
lote tree of the utmost boundary (sidrat 158–9, 164, 166n, 176, 181, 188–9,
al-muntahā), 210, 233–4, 239 190, 192, 201–26, 228, 236, 237–9,
love [for God] (ʿishq), 3, 13, 18, 85, 90, 241, 242, 243, 259–61
91, 98, 99, 102–7, 110, 112, 114, Mount ʿArafat, 88
115–16, 118, 121, 124n, 128n, 143, Mount Sinai, 3, 210, 218, 219, 239
148–50, 152–3, 156, 159–64, 170n, Muhammad, 3, 23, 26, 48, 101, 102, 106,
180, 190, 196n, 202, 206, 211, 107, 108, 142, 150, 163–4, 176,
214–17, 219–20, 222, 228, 235, 177, 180, 181, 188, 189, 191, 192,
240–1, 243, 246, 254–5, 259–60 193n, 195n, 196n, 203, 210, 216,
221, 222, 223, 227–55, 259, 260,
madhhab (legal school), 42 261
madrasah, 40, 43, 46, 51, 54, 57, 72n al-Muḥāsibī, al-Ḥārith, 32n, 93, 125n,
al-Makkī, Abū Ṭālib, 13, 141 180, 182, 196n
al-Makkī, ʿAmr b. ʿUthmān, 181, 185 Muqātil b. Sulaymān, 177, 193n, 230–4
malakūt, 10, 62, 90, 114, 116, 207, 221, Muʿtazilism and Muʿtazila, 11, 41, 45,
226, 241, 242, 245 107, 131n, 165n, 169n, 177, 178,
Malāmatiyya (People of Blame), 43–5, 184, 186, 194–5n, 204–8, 215,
46, 47, 50, 52, 55, 72n, 73n 224n, 237, 251

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mysticism, 4, 6–10, 16, 30n, 164n, 174, predestination, 25, 136, 138–9, 160–1,
223n, 255n, 261 166n
Christian mysticism, 28, 164 primordial covenant see Day of the
Islamic mysticism, 7–10, 47, 51, 52, Covenant
53, 223n Protestantism, 8–9
Jewish mysticism, 171n, 174, 265 proximity see nearness (qurb)
love mysticism, 59, 87, 124n, 150,
162, 214, 216, 222, 236 Qarmatianism (qarmaṭa), 17, 77n
visionary mysticism, 65, 68 al-Qāshānī, ʿAbd al-Razzāq, 33n
qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ (tales of the prophets)
Najm al-Dīn Kubrā, 81n, 123, 221 qurb, qurba see nearness
Nasafī, ʿAzīz-i, 32n, 263 al-Qushayrī, Abū’l-Qāsim, 13, 17, 18,
Nasr, Seyyid H., 11 22, 33n, 34n, 39–40, 43, 44, 54–7,
al-Naṣrābādhī, Abū’l-Qāsim, 46–7, 54, 59–60, 65, 67, 68, 69, 77n, 82n,
96–7, 249 97–100, 104, 128n, 132n, 139,
nearness [to God] (qurb), 3, 14, 23–5, 146–8, 160, 161, 162, 167n, 169n,
89, 93, 95, 98–9, 101, 104, 105, 107, 174, 184–7, 192, 203, 214–15,
111, 112–16, 121–3, 138–9, 143–6, 219, 221, 222, 228, 230–4, 236–7,
148, 150, 154–5, 162–4, 227–8, 247–9, 250n, 255n, 258–9
232, 235–6, 238–40, 254n, 257–8
Neoplatonism, 16, 176 Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya, 85, 87, 124n, 126n
night journey (isrāʾ), 3, 126n, 193n, Radtke, Bernd, 29–30n, 73n
196n, 227–30, 235, 237, 238, 239, al-Rāzī, Fakhr al-Dīn, 178, 194n
242, 246; see also miʿrāj Religious Studies, 6, 265
night prayer, 1, 6, 91,110 renunciation (zuhd) and renunciants
Nishapur, 24, 36n, 39, 40–6, 47, 51, 52, (zuhhād and nussāk), 17, 34n, 42,
53, 54, 55, 58, 74, 76n, 236; see also 44, 45, 53, 83–4, 85, 87, 88, 94, 97,
tafsīr, Nishapuri School of 100, 102, 103, 105, 107, 121, 124n,
Niẓām al-Mulk, 42, 55, 71n, 72n 141, 142, 162, 167–8n, 179, 180,
normativity, 5, 11, 12, 17, 27n, 33n 186, 191, 195n
nussāk see renunciation and renunciants resurrection, 87, 93, 105; see also Day of
Nwyia, Paul, 16–17, 74–5n, 76n, 135–6 Resurrection
Rippin, Andrew, 27n
orientalists, 7, 28–9n rubūbiyya see Lordship
orthodoxy, 6–7, 10–13, 30, 31n, 53 Rūdbārī, Abū ʿAlī, 101
Rūzbihān al-Baqlī al-Shīrāzī, 18, 22, 33,
Paradise 37, 39, 65–8, 69, 81n, 82n, 109–23,
banishment from, 3, 14, 23, 25, 123, 132–3n, 134n, 151–60, 160–4,
135–73, 201, 214, 239, 260 170–2n, 183, 184, 187–91, 192,
fall from, 14, 163, 164n, 165n; see also 218–21, 222, 230–4, 240–6, 247–9,
banishment from Paradise 254–5n, 258–61, 263–4
fruits of, 92, 108, 117–18, 126n, 141,
155, 157, 179 Safi, Omid, 9, 29n
primordial, 3, 14–15 Sahl see al-Tustarī
rewards in see hereafter Saleh, Walid, 21, 27n, 51
People of Blame see Malāmatiyya Saljūqs, 39, 41–2, 58, 63, 66, 71n, 80n
perennialism, 6, 7, 10, 27n, 174–5 salvation, 6, 109, 132n, 133n
Persia, 24, 36n, 39–41, 58, 59, 65, 191 samāʿ see audition
Persian language, 59, 60, 66, 68, 79n al-Samʿānī, Aḥmad, 143, 160, 163,
philosophers (falāsifa), 11, 65, 186, 187 170n
poetry, 57, 111, 128n, 132–3n, 182, Sāmānids, 41
225n, 239 Sands, Kristin Zahra, 18, 75n

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al-Sarrāj, Abū Naṣr ʿAbd Allāh, 13, 126n, 167n, 206–7, 229, 231, 232, 233–4,
180–1, 195n, 199n, 203, 237, 255n 237
Schimmel, Annemarie, 8 ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn (biographies of
al-Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad b. Idrīs, 198n Qur’an commentators), 17, 33–4n,
Shāfiʿism and Shāfiʿīs, 11, 41–7, 52, 54, 77n, 79n
55, 57, 58, 71, 73n, 76n, 143 tajallī see manifestation
shariah, 57, 59 taste, 1, 3, 6, 103, 163, 202, 238, 254n,
al-Shiblī, Abū Bakr, 47, 52, 95–6, 138–9, 256; see also foretaste
145, 182, 198n taqwā see God, wariness of
Shīʿism and Shīʿīs, 41, 45, 71n, 165n, tawakkul (reliance on God), 42, 87
194n al-Thaʿlabī, Abū Isḥāq Aḥmad, 45, 74n,
Shils, Edward, 12 138, 139–40, 166–7n, 169n, 206,
Shiraz, 39, 66 224n, 231–4
sidrat al-muntahā see lote tree of the theodicy, 25, 136, 142, 160, 168n
utmost boundary this-worldly life, 3, 5, 14–16, 25, 84, 89,
al-Simnānī, ʿAlā al-Dawla, 17 103, 112, 113, 115, 126n, 135–6,
Sirhindi, Aḥmad, 32n 141–3, 148–51, 159, 161–3, 187,
Smith, Margaret, 9, 196 192, 201, 228, 229, 256; see also
soteriology see salvation Dunyā
state (ḥāl), 3, 16, 26, 66, 86, 102, 103, traditionism and traditionists (ahl al-
109, 112, 113, 114–19, 149, 159, ḥadīth), 3, 4, 51, 52, 60, 73n, 166n,
163, 188, 189, 210, 212, 210–22, 177, 178, 194n, 205, 237
239, 240, 243–4, 261 Transoxania, 41, 43, 45
station (maqām), 103, 111, 112, 115, Ṭughril Beg, 42, 55
145, 153, 158, 189, 211, 212, 219, al-Tustarī, Sahl, 1–2, 6, 15, 49, 52, 76n,
241, 244, 246, 254n 78n, 88–92, 108, 126n, 142, 148,
al-Sulamī, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, 17, 18, 150, 198n, 228, 235, 249
21–2, 24, 33n, 34n, 36n, 39, 40,
44, 45, 46–53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, Underhill, Evelyn, 9
60, 64, 65, 67, 68–70, 75–7n, 82n, unification see ittiḥād
83, 85–97, 98, 99, 104, 121, 124n, unveiling (kashf, mukāshafa), 15, 18, 66,
131n, 139, 143–6, 147, 148, 149, 102, 112, 114, 116–17, 118, 149,
160, 161, 162, 168n, 169n, 184, 185, 211; see also veil (ḥijāb)
203, 208–14, 215, 217, 218, 219,
221–3, 224n, 228, 230, 235–6, 243, veil (ḥijāb), 63, 96, 99, 104, 107, 110,
246–9, 258, 259, 260, 262, 263 113, 153, 163, 180, 245, 257; see
al-Sulamī, Abū ʿAmr Ismāʿīl, 46 also unveiling
Sunnism and Sunni Islam, 11, 40, 53, vision of God (ruʾya), 23, 90, 97, 98, 99,
55, 71n, 98, 138, 165n, 169n, 186, 107, 108, 112, 113, 115, 116, 125n,
194n, 207, 215 154, 163, 178, 181, 183, 186–90,
al-Suyūṭī, Jalāl al-Dīn, 17, 33–4n, 77n, 193–4n, 195n, 197n, 199n, 203–6,
79n, 127n, 251 218, 219, 223n, 239, 265
cognitive vision, 175–6, 178, 183, 187,
al-Ṭabarī, 52, 60, 76n 192, 260–1
tafsīr contemplative vision, 175–6, 178,
as a genealogical tradition, 4, 19, 181, 182, 184, 185, 192, 248,
20–1, 35–6n, 69, 161, 169n, 175, 260–2
225, 248–9, 253n, 256, 262–3, 264 introvertive vision, 175–6, 183,
by allusion (ishāra), 17–18, 20, 49, 53, 260–1
56, 57, 69, 97, 103, 115, 116, 120, ʿiyān and muʿāyana (eye-witnessing),
149, 159, 214, 222, 242, 261 16, 89, 103, 105, 112–14, 117, 183,
Nishapuri School of, 74n, 137, 139, 196, 203, 210, 216, 238

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vision of God (cont.) 220–1, 230, 232–9, 241, 245–8,

mushāhada and shuhūd (witnessing), 253n, 254n, 260, 262
16, 49, 95–8, 101, 104, 105, 107,
108, 112–13, 114, 115, 116, 118, al-Wāḥidī, ʿAlī b. Aḥmad, 45, 53, 140,
154, 155, 159, 178, 181, 183, 185, 208, 231–4
187, 191–2, 197n, 203, 213, 216, wajd (ecstasy), 66, 94, 118, 188, 215; see
239, 241, 253n also ecstatic Sufism
naẓar (gaze or glance), 15, 86, 95, 98, walī see friend of God
203 al-Wāsiṭī, Abū Bakr, 52, 76n, 95, 127n,
primordial, 163, 228 183, 198n, 211, 213, 228, 242, 249
tajallī see manifestation waṣl see communion
with the eye (bi’l-ʿayn), 92, 98,
107–8, 112, 131n, 178, 181–2, Yazd, 39, 58, 78
186–8, 191–2, 195n, 196n, 206,
217, 227–55, 260–2; see also ẓāhir (outward), 34n, 48–50, 53, 69, 92,
ʿiyān 183, 222, 261–2
with the heart (bi’l-qalb), 92, 104, al-Zamakhsharī, Abū’l-Qāsim, 204, 251n
107, 108, 144, 178, 180–9, 191, Zoroastrianism and Zoroastrians, 41
195n, 196n, 198, 206, 213, 215–17, zuhd see renunciation

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