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XVII. Notes on Some Ṣūfi Lives
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
By the recent appearance in the “E. J. W. Gibb Memorial” of vol. xvii, the Kashf al-Maḥjúb of Dr. R. A. Nicholson, preceded, as it was, rather closely by the Treatise on Mysticism of Evelyn Underhill, the Eastern as well as the Western manifestations of the mystical spirit are portrayed. Dr. Nicholson is concerned exclusively with the former, which in Mysticism are but lightly touched on, its subject being that Mysticism which is dependent on a specific religious impulse, and is thereby distinguishable from Pantheism.
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page 552 note 1 “Reality” is defined (p. 40) as “an independent spiritual world unconditioned by the world of sense”, the “real life, spirit” is to be preferred to the “lower life of sense” not “existence, the superficial obvious thing,” but “substance, the underlying verity,” is to be our home (p. 207). The better antithesis would seem to be “Annihilation of our thought of phenomena”, the Sufi's ultimate goal.
page 552 note 2 The majority of the names in the Appendix are of small weight in the world's annals, and it is not as mystics that some of them, such as Aquinas, Dante, or even William Law, are known. The contention on p. 541 is staggering “When science, politics, literature, and the arts—the domination of nature and the ordering of life—have risen to their height and produced then greatest works, the mystic comes to the front, snatches the torch and carries it on. It is almost as if he were humanity's finest flower” The Renaissance, then, blossomed into St. John of the Cross and St. Rose of Lima.
page 553 note 1 Short Studies on Great Subjects, 1872, vol. ii, p. 124Google Scholar.
page 553 note 2 A very similar problem exercised the mind of an eminent Ṣūfi, Shaḳīḳ al-Balkhi. His pupil, Ḥātim al-Aṣamm, quoted to a Christian monk a saying of Shaḳīḳ: “If the skies were brass and the earth iron, rain and vegetation would cease, and were all people from end to end of the earth dependent on me, I should remain unconcerned.”
The monk advised him to quit a teacher who indulged in such baseless fancies; 
(Mir'āt al-Zamān, B.M. Or. 4618, 102b, 1. 18).
page 554 note 1 “The Higher Pantheism in a nutshell,” in The Heptalogia, or, the Seven against Sense (a cap with seven bells); London, 1880Google Scholar.
page 555 note 1 The oldest extant treatise on Sufiism in Arabic is said (Preface, xxiii) to be the Kitāb al-Luma' of Abu Naṣr Al-Sarrāj (d. a.h. 378, Dhahabi, B.M. Or. 48, 155b); this text Dr. Nicholson intends publishing in the “E. J. W. Gibb Memorial” series from a MS. in the possession of Mr. A. G. Ellis. Lately the British Museum also has acquired a complete and legibly written MS. of the work, of a.h. 548 (Or. 7710).
page 556 note 1 Dr. Nicholson assumes (Preface, xxiii) that the work of Sulami referred to by the author of the Kashf is the Ṭabaḳāt, but the Ta'rīkh may be equally intended, and this might account for the discrepancy mentioned p. 114, n. 1. The Miḥan is quoted in Leyden, 1721, 6, and B.M. Or. 48*, 100b, 1. 6, the Ta'rīkh, ib. 47b, and Or. 48, 70b 100b, etc. Dhahabi says of Sulami, ib. 149b: 
page 556 note 2 
(B.M. Or. 48, 129a) 
(ib. 149a, 1. 14) 
(Ansāb, 344a, 18).
page 557 note 1 
(B.M. Or. 48, 128b).
page 557 note 2 
(B.M. Add. 18520, 14b).
page 557 note 3 
(ib. 39a).
page 557 note 4 Dhahabi (Or. 50, 150a) tells how Ṣūfi women met Abu Isḥa;ḳ and threw their rosaries into his litter in the hope of a blessing through contact with his person.
page 558 note 1 
(B.M. Or. 48*, 24b).
page 558 note 2 Rābi'a bint Ismā'īl, d. a.h. 229 (Or. 3004, 5b). Abu Nu'aim, d. a h. 430, says of her in the Hilya (Leyd. Cod. 1188, 24b, Rev. Cat. No. 1073) that, according to Sulami, she shared name and patronymic with Rābi'a al-'Adawiyya (Ibn Khall., de Sll. Eng. 1, 515), but she was of Basra, and this one of Syria, and on all the authorities the latter should be written Ra'i'a. We are told that on Ibn al Hawāri meeting with a Princess and her companions she was so overcome on hearing him by love for Allah that she forthwith died (Or. 4618, 134a, 1. 6). A similar incident is recorded of Bistāmi (p. 106). A young man invited to visit him had refused, saying that the sight of Allah sufficed him; on persuasion he went, and died on the spot. Bistami explained the occurrence as the result of his own superior “state” having served as the medium of communication between the young man and Allah 
(ib. 209a, 1. 2).
page 558 note 3 
(B M. Or. 4618, 102b, 1. 12).
page 558 note 4 
(B M. Or. 48, 149a), on the authority of al-Hākim al Nisābūri Muhammad's father, Abu Ja'far Ahmad (d. a h. 311), also a Sūfi, is noticed in B M. Add. 18520, 76a and Or. 48*, 77b
page 559 note 1 Dhahabi, Bodl. No. 659, 188a, 1. 17 
page 559 note 2 
(B M. Add. 18520, 42b).
page 559 note 3 History of European Morals, ch. IV.
page 559 note 4 This argument was advanced in Tahir's favour by one present, viz. that Jesus, admittedly a prophet, had brought on mankind more tribulation than Tāhir, and that to neither of them personally did any mischief enure. The text runs: 
(B.M. Or 49, 106a).
page 560 note 1 
(B.M. Or. 3004, 203b).
page 561 note 1 
(B.M. Or. 48, 128a).
page 561 note 2 
(B.M. Add. 18520, 3b).
page 562 note 1 
(B.M. Add. 18520, 45a). I am indebted to Professor Goldziher for a meaning, which he declares to be only tentative. “If the illumination precedes the Simā' it is of a higher sort, and a little music suffices to cure; if, however, the Simā' be applied to an unenlightened person whose enlightenment comes only later, then it is of a lower order, and the Simā', being profane in character, may be injurious.” The Professor concludes: 
page 562 note 2 
(B.M. Add. 18520, 70a). Professor D. S. Margoliouth has solved this saying thus: “The tongue when made to speak is made to perish thereby; and the soul, when made subservient to some worldly purpose, meets the like fate.”
page 562 note 3 Ma'mūn held the tenets of this sect to be proper for kings: 
(Ibn abi Ṭāhir Ṭaifūr, B.M. Add.23318, 34b).
page 563 note 1 
(Leyden, 1721, 123b)
page 563 note 2 
(B.M. Add. 18520, 87a, 92b; and Or. 48*, 193b, 233a).
page 564 note 1 
(B.M. Or. 4618, 209a).
page 565 note 1 
(B.M. Or. 48*,35a).
page 566 note 1 
(B.M. Or. 4618, 201a, 1. ult., and Or. 3004, 170a, 1. 14). Ma'rūf al-Karkhi (p. 113), born a Christian and converted to Islām, returned also, knocked, and announced himself. Asked his religion, he replied “Islām”, and his parents thereupon became Moslems also (Ibn Khall., de Sl. Eng. iii, 384).
page 566 note 2 
(leyden, 1721, 119b).
(ib. 159a).
Ibn al-A'rābi is probably quoted from his Ṭabaḳāt al-Nassāk, which Dhahabi mentions by name in the notices of Muḥāsibi (ib. 3b), of Abu Hamza Baghdadi (ib. 103b), and of another Sufi, Abu 'Ali al-Ḥasan b. 'Ali al-Masūḥi, d. a.h. 256 (ib. 90b). Ibn al-A'rābi is noticed by Dhahabi, Or. 48*, 241b, and Brock, i, 521. In the Kitāb al-Luma' of al-Sarrāj (B.M. Or. 7710) he is said to have written a work, the Kitāb al-Wajd, which does not appear to be elsewhere recorded.
page 568 note 1 
(Leyden, 1721, 104a).
page 569 note 1 
(Leyden, 1721, 23b).
page 570 note 1 
(B.M. Or. 49, 223a, penult.).
page 571 note 1 
(B.M. Or. 48*, 46b). Here is another instance of the working of zuhd on the intellect.
page 571 note 2 The author of the Farḳ, Abu Manṣūr 'Abd al-Ḳāhir b. Ṭāhir, is noticed by Dhahabi under a.h. 426 and 429 (B.M. Or. 49, 139a and 152a), where the Farḳ is not mentioned, only his Takmila fil-Hisāb (Ḥāji Kh., No. 3523). By Ibn Khall, (de Sl. Eng. iii, 149) his death is dated a.h. 429, followed Brock, i, 385).
page 572 note 1 
(B.M. Or. 48*, 47b).
page 572 note 2 Dhahabi says, sub a.h. 344, on the subject of Ḥallāj's detection:
(B-M- Or- 48*. 266).
page 572 note 3 In the Ṣūfi view concealment was meritorious; the arcana of Sufiism are mentioned, Kashf, p. 157, and are born out by the following sayings of Murta'ish (p. 39, etc.) and Abu 'Amr (qy. 'Umar) al-Dimashki (p. 38); compare also the Shiite conception of Taḳiyya (Goldziher, Vorlesungen ii. d. Islām, p. 215):—
(B.M. Add. 18520, 80b).
(B.M. Add. 18520, 61b, and Or. 48*, 125b).
page 573 note 1 This passage is translated, not quite correctly, by Haarbrücker, trans. Shahrastāni, ii, 417–18.
page 573 note 2 
(B.M. Or. 48, 70b; Al-Naḳḳāsh, Muḥ. b. 'Ali b. 'Amr b. Mahdi al-Isbahani, ob. a.h. 414, B.M. Or. 49, 90b).
page 574 note 1 The story occurs also in Dhahabi's notice of Ibn Manda in the Ta'rīkh al-Islām (B.M. Or. 50, 124b).
page 575 note 1 
(B.M. Or. 4618, 206b, 1. 5a.f.).
page 576 note 1 
(B.M. or. 48*, 279b).
page 576 note 2 
(B.M. Add. 18520, 81b, and Or. 48*, 157a).
page 576 note 3 
(B.M. Or. 48, 204-b).
page 577 note 1 
(B M. Or. 48*, 215).
page 578 note 1 
The passage occurs in the introduction to a MS., Khulāṣa Ta'rīkh al-Bahā, in my possession and destined by its owner, Mr. G. L. M. Clauson. for the Library of the British Museum.
page 578 note 1 The Eloping Angels, a Caprice by Watson, William, 1893Google Scholar.
page 578 note 2 The Dream of Man, by Watson, William, 1892Google Scholar.
page 584 note 1 Cf. Ḥāji Khalifa, Index, No. 313; in the entries his death is dated a.h. 255. Brockelmann mentions two writers of this name, vol. i, pp. 164 and 199: one died 255; the other, whom he calls al-Ḥakīm, died 320, and to him he attributes the Kitdb al-Furūḳ (Ḥ. Kh. No. 9040), besides some of the works mentioned in the Kashf, p. 141, and which appear in Ḥ. Kh. under rather different titles; cf. Nos. 76, 8608, 9040, 10085, and 13252. The confusion between the two writers is indicated n i Berlin Cat. Ahlwardt, No. 8504, 5a (vol. viii, 486); and that there is something to justify it appears from Dhahabi's statement that Ibn al-Najjār (d. a.h. 643, Brock, i, 360), in his notice of Tirmidhi, omits his date of death, but says that someone was studying under him in a.h. 318, which was impossible. Dhahabi quotes Sulami for his having to quit his native city for Balkh owing to the disapproval aroused by two of his works (mentioned H. Kh. No. 76), and by his regarding saints as superior to prophets (see pp. 235–9). Sulami holds that he was wronged, and that his critics' intelligence was at fault, but Dhahabi deplores the works; heretics and philosophers had imposed on the vulgar with Sufic explanations. And he deplores also a work Sulami had written, Ḥaḳa'iḳ al-Tafsīr, as Karmathian in spirit. The path he preferred was no doubt that he had indicated in a saying he had quoted from Naṣrābādhi—
“Prophets begin, know this, where Saintship ends.”
Ibn Sam'ūn, above mentioned, had a narrow escape at the hands of ‘Aḍud al-Daula. When that monarch reached Baghdād and found it distracted by conflicts of rival sects he considered the mischief to arise from the preacher's exhortations: let all such not touch on the Prophet's Companions, but stick bo the Ḳurān, or else they should suffer for it. Soon came a report that Ibn Sam'ūn was preaching; he was sent for, and the messenger, impressed by his dignity and confidence, advised caution on him when before the monarch. But he entered unperturbed, made apposite Kuran quotations on his predecessor 'Izz al-Daula, and went on to exhort him with such eloquence as to draw tears from him, which was not 'Aḍud al-Daula's habit. But in his view Sufiism was to be judged, and strictly, by its fruits, and he sent a slave after Ibn Sam'ūn with an offer of money and clothes, either to keep or to give to friends, and he instructed him that, if they were retained, he was to return to him with Ibn Sam'ūn's head. Ibn Sam'ūn, however, told the envoy that his clothes had lasted him, with care, for forty years, and would outlast him; that he had the rent of a house, left by his father, for his support; and tha t none of his friends were destitute. On hearing this 'Aḍud al-Daula gave thanks tha t each of them had escaped the other. This way of stating his own share in the matter is akin to the French marshal's telling his visitor how highly he valued a picture, as it had been the means of saving a man's life, which his aide-de-camp explained to mean that its owner had surrendered it on threat of being shot if he refused. But the story depicts 'Aḍud al-Daula as statesman-like and resolute, and his action may not have been without effect on Ibn Sam'ūn and the Ṣufi brotherhood.
page 584 note * 
(Loyden, 1721, 148a).
page 584 note † 
(B.M. Or. 48, 97b, 1. 2a.f.).
page 585 note * 
French marshal's telling his visitor how highly he valued a picture, as it had been the means of saving a man's life, which his aide-de-camp explained to mean that its owner had surrendered it on threat of being shot if he refused. But the story depicts 'Aḍud al-Daula as statesmanlike and resolute, and his action may not have been without effect on Ibn Sam'ūn and the Ṣūfi brotherhood.
(B.M. Or. 48, 204b).