A Lover of God

Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
	Aim and Scope of the Study
	The Sources Studied
		Sufi Manuals and Biographies
		A Sufi Commentary on the Quran
		MS Taylor-Schechter Arabic  41.1
		Stations of the Hearts
	Some Methodological Observations, the Use of Sufi Commentaries
	Social, Religious, and Historical Context
Chapter 1 Kalābādhī: Doctrine of the Sufis (Kitāb al-taʿarruf)
	Introduction
	Sufism
	Overt Expression of Mystical Experience
	Ways to God: Contemplation versus Intellect
		Contemplation and Witnessing God
		Heart (qalb) and Inner Heart (sirr)
		Unveiling (mukāshafa)
		Witnessing and Contemplation (shuhūd or mushāhada)
		Connection (ittiṣāl)
	Dhikr and Ecstasy
	Addressing God
	Conclusions
Chapter 2 Sarrāj: Book of Flashes (Kitāb al-lumaʿ)
	Introduction
	Sufism and Ecstasy
	Love and Ecstasy
	Blasphemous Sayings
	Miracles
	Moderateness and Soberness
	Conclusions
Chapter 3 Sulamī: Generations of the Sufis (Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya)
	Introduction
	Traditions Relevant to the Drunken Tendency
	Gaze (naẓar)
	Traditions Relevant to the Drunken Tendency
	Conclusions
Chapter 4 Sulamī: Realities of Interpretation (Ḥaqā’iq al-tafsīr)
	Introduction
	Q 2:29
		“He is who created for you everything on earth, and then He turned to the sky and arranged it in seven heavens; for He knows everything.”
	Q 2:40
		“Oh, sons of Israel! Recall (udhkurū, cf. dhikr) the benefaction (niʿma) I granted you, and be faithful (awfū, cf. wafā’) to My covenant and then I will be faithful to your covenant; and Me you should fear.”
	Q 2:245
		“Who could loan God a nice loan, so that He may return to him the double or more? For God constrains and extends, and you are returned to Him.”
	Q 2:273
		“As for the poor who are in need on the path of God, who cannot make a journey in the land; the ignorant deem them rich because of their continence. You can recognize them by their mark: they do not beg from the people importunately. But if you spend any good thing, surely God knows it.”
	Q 3:35
		“When the wife of ʿImrān said: My Lord, I have vowed to give you as a [person] consacrated [to Your service] what is in my womb. Accept it from me, for You hear and know everything!”
	Q 3:97
		“There are clear signs in it, the station (maqām) of Abraham; whoever enters it is safe. He who can perform the pilgrimage to the House is obligated by God to do so; and whoever disbelieves: God is not in need of the world.”
	Q 3:128
		“You have nothing to do with this, He may turn to them [mercifully] or may punish them, for they are wrongdoers.”
	Q 3:152
		“God fulfilled His promise when you slew them by His permission, until you failed and argued about the command, and you disobeyed after He had shown you what you had desired [that is, the booty]. Some of you seek the world, and some of you seek the world to come. Then He kept away you from them in order to test you, but He has already forgiven you, for God is generous towards the believers.”
	Q 4:128
		“If a woman fears that her husband may treat her badly, or may avoid her, it won’t do any harm if they make peace with each other, since peace is a good thing. Avarice was brought to the souls [of man], but if you act benevolently and fear God, He will surely know what you do.”
	Q 6:9
		“Had we sent an angel, we would have made him a man, and surely we would have confused them more regarding what they were already confused.”
	Q 6:36
		“Only those who hear can answer; God resurrects the dead and they will be returned to Him.”
	Q 6:83
		“This is the argument we brought to Abraham against his people: We elevate the rank of those we wish; your Lord is wise and all-knowing.”
	Q 7:2
		“A book brought down to you so that you may warn [the people], and in order to be a reminder to the believers; so let there be no distress in your chest (ṣadr) because of it.”
	Q 7:29
		“Say: My Lord has commanded justice; set upright your faces at every place of prayer, and call to Him with sincere religiosity; you will revert to [what you were] when He created you.”
	Q 10:22
		“He enables you to travel by land and sea; until [it happens that] when you are in ships sailing with good wind, and they rejoice at it, [suddenly] stormy wind comes around, and waves from every side; they think that they are surrounded, and call to God with sincere religiosity: if You save us from this, we will be grateful.”
	Q 11:17
		“Verily, those who follow their Lord’s clear sign (bayyina), recited by His witness, like beforehand the book of Moses, as a guide and mercy—those believe in it; but whoever of the parties denies it, fire will be his destination. Do not doubt it; it is the truth from your Lord, but most of the people do not believe.”
	Q 14:10
		“Their messengers said: Is there any doubt concerning God, the Creator (fāṭir) of the heavens and the earth? He calls you [to Himself] in order to forgive your sins and to delay the moment determined [for calling you to account]. They said: You are nothing but humans like us! You want to prevent us from [worshipping] what our fathers worshipped; bring to us an outright authority!”
	Q 15:72
		“By your life! They wandered about in their intoxication.”
	Q 18:28
		“Endure patiently with those who call to their Lord day and night, seeking His face, and let not your eyes bypass them, seeking the beauty of worldly life. Do not obey him whose heart We made neglect to recall Us, who follows his passion, and who carries matters to extremes.”
	Q 22:78
		“Strive in [the way of] God as it befits Him. He has chosen you and has not imposed upon you any hardship in your religion, [it is] the faith of your forefather, Abraham. He named you Muslims [i.e., those who have surrendered to God] both previously and in this [Quranic passage], so that the Messenger may be witness against you, and you may be witnesses against the people. So perform the prayer and give the charity [prescribed], and hold fast to God; He is your Protector, how excellent a Protector and how excellent a Helper!”
	Q 24:63
		“Do not make the Messenger’s call to you like your call to each other. God knows those of you who steal away seeking refuge. So let him beware who diverges from his command, lest dissent (fitna) and painful chastisement may afflict them.”
	Q 27:50
		“So they plotted a plot: and We plotted a plot, while they perceived not.”
	Q 35:32
		“Then we brought down the Book on those whom we have chosen from among our servants. Some of them do wrong to themselves, some adopt the middle course and some are foremost in good deeds by God’s permission: that is the greatest grace.”
	Q 36:61
		“And that you should serve Me? That is the right way.”
	Q 39:60
		“The day of resurrection you will see those who lied about God, their faces will be blackened. Is there no place to settle for the haughty in the hell?”
	Q 56:85
		“And we are closer to you than you are, but you do not perceive.”
	Q 57:3
		“He is the first and the last, the manifest and the hidden, and he knows everything.”
	Q 72:3
		“And that He—may our Lord’s majesty (jadd) be exalted—has taken neither consort, nor son.”
	Q 98:8
		“Their reward at their Lord are gardens in Eden, beneath which rivers flow, living there immortals infinitely, God content with them and they content with Him: this is for him who fears his Lord.”
	Conclusions
Chapter 5 Kharkūshī: Revision of the Secrets (Tahdhīb al-asrār)
	Introduction
	Sufism and Ecstasy
	Heart and Inner Heart
	Absence and Annihilation
	Spiritual Poverty and Contentment
	Comments on the Quran
	Biographical Details
	Conclusions
Chapter 6 Abū Nuʿaym: Ornament of God’s Friends (Ḥilyat al-awliyā’)
	Introduction
	Biographical Details
	Poems and Sayings
	Conclusions
Chapter 7 Qushayrī: Treatise (al-Risāla al-qushayriyya)
	Introduction
	Biographical Details
	Firāsa: Insight, Capacity of Reading Other People’s Thoughts
	Sayings Relevant to the Drunken Tendency
	Sayings Related to the Sober Tendency
	Conclusions
Chapter 8 Sīrjānī: Black and White in the Words of Wisdom (Kitāb al-bayāḍ wa-l-sawād)
	Introduction
	Mystical Knowledge and Theoretical Learning
	Murīd and Murād
	Tripartite Division of the Heart
	Gaze (naẓar)
	Abstinence and Contentment
	Ecstasy and Recollection
	Conclusions
Chapter 9 Correspondence between Nūrī and Junayd Preserved in the Cairo Genizah
	Description of the Manuscript
	Correspondence between Nūrī and Junayd Mentioned in the Previous Sources
	Style and Topic of the Letters: Tribulations (balā’), Limits of Verbal Expression
	Authenticity of the Letters
	Translation of the Correspondence between Nūrī and Junayd on Tribulation (Balā’)
		Cambridge University Library, Taylor-Schechter Arabic 41.1
			Fol. 7b
			Fol. 8a
			Fol. 8b
			Fol. 9a
			Fol. 9b
			Fol. 10a
			Fol. 10b
Chapter 10 Stations of the Hearts (Maqāmāt al-qulūb)
	Nwyia’s Arguments in Favor of the Authenticity of the Tractate
	Counterarguments Questioning Nūrī’s Authorship
	The Symbolism of the Heart
	Style and Content of the Tractate
	Stations of the Hearts
		I. Description of the Believer’s Heart as a House
		II. God’s Gentleness toward the Heart of the Believer until It Got to Know Him
		III. God’s Dealing with the Hearts of His Enemies Until They Ignored Him
		IV. The Three Kinds of Heart
		V. Description of the Knowers’ Hearts
		VI. Description of the Sound Heart
		VII. Description of the Beloved Ones’ Hearts
		VIII. The Fortresses of the Believer’s Heart
		IX. The Fires in the Heart of the Believer
		X. The Meadows of the Believing Knower’s Heart
		XI. The Lights of the Knower’s Heart
		XII. The First Thing That Appears in the Heart of the Knower
		XIII. The Seas of the Knower’s Heart
		XIV. The Tree of Knowledge in the Heart of the Knower
		XV. The Tongue of the Knower’s Heart, Its Sayings, Signs and [the Believer] Listening [to It]
		XVI. Parable of the Believer’s Heart and Its Dweller
		XVII. Parable of the Tree of Knowledge in the Heart of the Believer
		XVIII. Parable of the Tree of Futile Passion
		XIX. Description of the Gardens of the Knower’s Heart
		XX. The Rains of the Hearts of God’s Friends and Enemies
Chapter 11 Conclusions
	How Ecstatic Is an Ecstatic Mystic in Fact?
	Narrative Structures
	Nūrī’s Portrayal in the Different Sources: Themes, Genres, and Purposes
Appendix A Arabic Texts
	Ch. 1. Kalābādhī’s Doctrine of the Sufis
		(Kitāb al-taʿarruf li-madhhab ahl al-taṣawwuf. Ed. Arberry. Cairo: al-Khānajī, 1994)
	Ch. 2. Sarrāj’s Book of Flashes
		(Kitāb al-lumaʿ fī l-taṣawwuf. Ed. Nicholson. Leiden and London: Brill and Luzac, 1914)
		Arthur John Arberry, Pages from the Kitāb al-Lumaʿ of Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj being the Lacuna in the Edition of R. A. Nicholson (London: Luzac, 1947)
	Ch. 3. Sulamī’s Generations of the Sufis
		(Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya. Ed. Nūr al-Dīn Shurayba. Cairo: al-Khānjī, 1997)
	Ch. 4. Sulamī’s Realities of Interpretation
	Ch. 5. Kharkūshī’s Revision of the Secrets
		(Tahdhīb al-asrār. Ed. Bassām M. Bārūd. Abu Dhabi: al-Majmaʿ al-Tha’qāfī, 1999)
	Ch. 6. Abū Nuʿaym’s Ornament of God’s Friends
		(Ḥilyat al-awliyā’ wa-Ṭabaqāt al-aṣfiyā’. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1988)
	Ch. 7. Qushayrī’s Treatise
		(al-Risāla al-qushayriyya, ed. M. Zurayq and A. Balṭajī. Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, n.d.)
		(al-Risāla al-qushayriyya, ed. A. Maḥmūd and M. Ibn al-Sharīf. Cairo: Dār al-Shaʿb, 1989)
	Ch. 8. Sīrjānī’s Black and White in the Words of Wisdom
		(Kitāb al-bayāḍ wa-l-sawād, ed. B. Orfali and N. Saab. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012) The list contains only those traditions that are not quoted in the earlier collections
	Ch. 9. Correspondence between Nūrī and Junayd
		Cambridge University Library, Taylor-Schechter Arabic 41.1, fols. 7b–10b
	Ch. 10. Stations of the Hearts
Appendix B Comparative Table of the Material Related to Nūrī
Appendix C Technical Terms
Notes
Bibliography
Index