Theoretical Gnosis and Doctrinal Sufism and Their Significance Today

The Arab World

From this early foundation located in Syria and Anatolia the teachings of the School of Ibn ‘Arabī and theoretical gnosis spread to different regions of the Islamic world. In summary fashion we shall try to deal with some of the most important figures in each region. Let us commence with the Arab world. In the Maghrib a very strong Sufi tradition has been preserved over the centuries but Maghribī Sufism, although devoted to gnosis in its purest form as we see in such figures as Abū Madyan, Ibn Mashīsh and Abu’l-Hasan al-Shādhilī, was not given to long theoretical expositions of gnosis as we see in the East.17

Most works from this region were concerned with the practice of the Sufi path and explanation of practical Sufi teachings. One had to wait for the 12th/18th century to find in the works of Ahmad ibn ‘Ajībah (d. 1224/1809-10) treatises which belong to the genre of theoretical gnosis. But the oral tradition based on Ibn ‘Arabian teachings was kept alive as we see in the personal instructions and also written works of such celebrated 14th/20th century Sufi masters of the Maghrib as Shaykh al-‘Alawī (d. 1353/1934) and Shaykh Muhammad al-Tādilī (d. 1371/1952).18 Maghribī works on gnosis tended, however, to be usually less systematic and philosophical in their exposition of gnosis than those of the East.

A supreme example of Ibn ‘Arabian teachings emanating from the Maghrib is to be found in the writings of the celebrated Algerian amīr and Sufi master ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Jazā’irī (d. 1300/1883), who taught the works of Ibn ‘Arabī when in exile in Damascus. Amīr ‘Abd al-Qādir also composed a number of independent works on gnosis such as the Kitāb al-mawāqif.19 To this day the text of the Fusūs and the Futūhāt are taught in certain Sufi enters of the Maghrib especially those associated with the Shādhiliyyah Order which has continued to produce over the centuries its own distinct genre of Sufi literature going back to the prayers of Abu’l-Hasan al-Shādhilī (d. 656/1258) and especially the treatises of the third pole of the Order, Ibn ‘Atā’ Allāh al-Iskandarī (d.709/1309). In later centuries these two currents, the first issuing from early Shādhilism and the second from Ibn ‘Arabian gnosis were to meet in many notable figures of Sufism from that as well as other regions.

There was greater interest in theoretical gnosis in the eastern part of the Arab world as far as the production of written texts is concerned. Strangely enough, however, Egypt, which has always been a major center of Sufism, is an exception. In that ancient land there has always been more interest in practical Sufism and Sufi ethics than in speculative thought and doctrinal Sufism although Akbarian teachings had spread to Mamluk Egypt in the 7th/13th century. There were also some popularizers of Ibn ‘Arabī’s teachings in Egypt, perhaps chief among them ‘Abd al-Wahhāb al-Sha‘rānī (d. 973/1565), whose well known works present a more popular version of the Futūhāt and Fusūs.20 He tried also to link Shādhilī teachings with those of Ibn ‘Arabī. There are, however, few notable commentaries on classical texts of gnosis in Egypt in comparison with those one finds in many other lands. Theoretical gnosis was, nevertheless, taught and studied by many Egyptian figures. In this context it is interesting to note that even the

modernist reformer Muhammad ‘Abduh turned to the study of Ibn ‘Arabī later in life.

Opposition to these writings has remained, however, strong to this day in many circles in that land as one sees in the demonstrations in front of the Egyptian Parliament some years ago on the occasion of the publication of the Futūhāt by Osman Yahya who had edited the text critically.

In the Yemen there was great interest in Ibn ‘Arabian gnosis in the School of Zabīd especially under the Rasūlids up to the 9th/15th century. Ismā‘ī al-Jabartī (d. 806/1403), Ahmad ibn al-Raddād (d. 821/1417-18) and ‘Abd al-Karīm al-Jīlī (d. 832/1428) were particularly significant figures of this School in the Yemen.21 Al-Jīlī, Theoretical Gnosis and Doctrinal Sufism and Their Significance Today 9

who was originally Persian but resided in the Yemen, is particularly important because of his magnum opus, al-Insān al-kāmil, a primary work of gnosis that is used as a text for the instruction of theoretical gnosis from Morocco to India to this day. It is a more systematic exposition of the teaching of Ibn ‘Arabī.22

In the eastern Arab world it was especially in greater Palestine and Syria that one sees continuous interest in theoretical gnosis and the writing of important commentaries on Ibn ‘Arabī such as that of ‘Abd al-Ghanyī al-Nābulusī (d. 1143/1731) on the Fusūs.23

Also, the defense by Ibrāhīm ibn Hasan al-Kurānī (d. 1101/1690), a Kurdish scholar who resided in Mecca, of the gnosis of Ibn ‘Arabī had much influence in Syria and adjoining areas. Although, as in Egypt and elsewhere, many jurists and theologians in Syria going back to Ibn Taymiyyah and students of Sa‘d al-Dīn al-Taftāzanī, opposed the doctrines of Ibn ‘Arabian gnosis, this School remained very much alive and continues to survive to this day in that region.

One of the most remarkable contemporary Sufis who died in Beirut just a few years ago, the woman saint, Sayyidah Fātimah al-

Yashrutiyyah, gave the title al-Rihlah ila’l-Haqq to her major work on Sufism on the basis of a dream of Ibn ‘Arabī.24