1 - Introduction

Summary

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.’ 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.’

These two anecdotes testify to the fact that in early Islamic mysticism 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 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 introductory 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.