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- Title
IMPOSTORS, ANTINOMIANS AND PSEUDO-SUFIS: CATALOGUING THE MISCREANTS.
- Authors
Algar, Hamid
- Abstract
From the fourth/tenth century onwards, numerous Sufi authors found it necessary to identify groups they regarded as inauthentic, as false claimants to the Sufism they claimed to espouse. Particularly energetic in this regard was Ghazālī; in a treatise denouncing them together with other antinomians, he called for their eradication. Less well known is Abū Ḥafṣ al-Nasafī (d. 537/1142); he wrote a brief treatise detailing twelve groups of claimants to Sufism, only one of which was on the right path. With his denunciation of a Khārijī splinter group and the Carmatians among the eleven clusters of reprobates, al-Nasafī demonstrates how this cataloguing genre may intersect with heresiography. Sayyid Jamāl al-Dīn al-Rāzī, a Shiʿi author of the sixth/twelfth century, also lists the repugnant practices of some Sufis, but decisive for him is that Sufism as such is intrinsically reprehensible as a Sunni phenomenon; here, the genre overlaps with Sunni–Shiʿi polemics. Harsher in his denunciation of Sufism was a later Shiʿi scholar, al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī (d.1104/1692); the vehemence of his prolix diatribe is doubtless attributable to the need to uproot Sufism and firmly establish Shiʿism as the creed of the Safavid realm. He incorporates al-Nasafī's listing of deviant groups in his own work, only to dismiss it as inadequate. More nuanced in his tone than al-ʿĀmilı was the celebrated gnostic, Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1640): while denouncing certain tendencies—much like his Sunni predecessors—he certified others as compatible with Shiʿism, even indeed as originating within it. A century after Ṣadrā, İbrahim Hakkı (d.1186/1772), an Ottoman scholar and Sufi, incorporated al-Nasafī's treatise, without acknowledgement, in his Maʿrifetnâme for reasons that are not entirely clear. As Sufism became firmly established in Muslim society and the Sufi orders engaged in a measure of self-discipline, the cataloguing genre faded, and once Wahhabism appeared on the scene, it was a question of condemning Sufism as such, not certain tendencies or groups.
- Subjects
POLEMICS; SUFISM; ISLAMIC law
- Publication
Journal of Islamic Studies, 2018, Vol 29, Issue 1, p25
- ISSN
0955-2340
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/jis/etx063