Sufis and Shari?a: The Forgotten School of Mercy

by Samer Dajani

Overview

This book highlights a number of the major Sufi figures whose writings on legal theory were strongly shaped by their Sufism, showing how they belonged to the same tradition and developed each other’s ideas. The book focuses in particular on Ibn ʿArabī, giving a detailed analysis of his legal thought and revealing his influence on a number of major Sufi figures all the way up to the 19th century. Other key figures whose influence is explored are al-Tirmidhī , al-Shaʿrānī and Ibn Idrīs. This is the first study to give a full picture of the role that Sufi thought played in the revivalist Islamic movements of the 18th, 19th and even 20th centuries.

This book is not about Sufism. It is about the nature of the Sharīʿa. In the first three centuries of Islam, many scholars believed that juristic differences were rooted in the Sharīʿa’s inherent flexibility. As this pluralistic attitude began to disappear, a number of Sufis defended and developed this idea through the centuries. They aimed to preserve the leniency and simplicity of the Sharīʿa against the complications and restrictions created by many jurists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399508568
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	11/29/2022
Pages:	380
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dr Samer Dajani gained his PhD in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from SOAS in 2015, before spending a year as a Research Fellow at the Cambridge Muslim College and then working as a lecturer in both Sufism and Modern Islamic Thought at the Muslim College in Ealing, London until 2020. He then stopped teaching to focus on a major new research project, and has given talks on selected subjects from this research at The University of Cambridge, The University of Exeter, SOAS and the annual BRAIS Conference. His publications include ‘Ibn ʿArabī and the Theory of a Flexible Sharīʿa’, in the Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society (2018), ‘The Centrality of Ibn ʿArabī in Popular Ḥadīth Chains’, in the Journal of the Muhyid-din Ibn ʿArabi Society (2017) and a 2013 book, Reassurance for the Seeker: A Biography and Translation of Ṣāliḥ al-Jaʿfarī’s al-Fawāiʾd al-Jaʿfariyya, a Commentary on Forty Prophetic Traditions.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Sufis and Legal Theory

The Sufis and Uṣūl al-fiqh

Part One: Mysticism, Traditionalism, and the School of Mercy

Chapter 1: The Schools of Law

• Ijtihād and the Science of Legal Theory
• Hadith vs Sunna
• Rationalists vs Traditionalists
• The Traditionist-Jurisprudents
• The Great Synthesis and the Four Madhhabs
• The Ẓāhirīs

Chapter 2: Sufis and Traditionalism

• Sufis and Fiqh
• Affinities between the Mystics and Traditionalists
• Conceptions of Sainthood Among the Traditionalist Movement
• The Mystics and the Schools

Chapter 3: Al-Tirmidhī’s Critique of Rationalism

• A Brief Sketch of Tirmidhī’s Life and Intellectual Upbringing
• Tirmidhī and Jurisprudence
• Ḥikma: The Spiritual Wisdom Behind the Divine Prescriptions
• Tirmidhī’s Conception of Ijtihād
• The Law is Mercy
• Conclusion

Chapter 4: Ibn ʿArabī’s Traditionalism

• The life of Ibn ʿArabī
• The Intellectual Environment in Andalusia
• The Influence of Eastern Mystics and Sufis
• Mysticism, Traditions and Traditionalism
• Ibn ʿArabī and the Works of Ibn Ḥazm

Chapter 5: The Akbarī Madhhab: Ibn ʿArabī’s School of Mercy

• Ibn ʿArabī and Ẓahirism
• Original Licitness and The Ease Principle
• Divine Pardon and Mercy
• Ibn ʿArabī’s Position on Ijtihād
• Taqlīd, Pluralism and God’s Mercy
• Summary
• Did Ibn ʿArabī Have His Own Madhhab?

Chapter 6: Loyalty to the Akbarī Way: ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʿrānī

• ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʿrānī
• Shaʿrānī’s Writings on Ibn ʿArabī
• The Removal of the Fog

Part Two: Mercy in Flexibility: A Path for All Mankind

Chapter 7: The All-Comprehensive Nature of the Sharīʿa: From Tirmidhī to Suyūṭī

• The Early Concept of Leeway
• The Position of the Four Madhhabs
• Ibn Ḥanbal and the Traditionalists
• Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī
• Ibn ʿArabī
• Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī
• Al-Suyūṭī
• Difference of Perspective

Chapter 8: The ‘Scale’ of ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʿrānī

• The Scale
• The Sufi Ideas Underlying the Theory
• The Concept of Leeway vs the Concept of Abrogation
• Shaʿrānī’s Defence of the Madhhabs
• Why Shaʿrānī Wrote the Mīzān
• The Problem of Talfīq

Part Three: The Akbarī Madhhab in Practice and its Influence on the Modern World

Chapter 9: Aḥmad ibn Idrīs and the Implementation of Ibn ʿArabī’s Jurisprudence in the 19th Century

• The Importance of Aḥmad ibn Idrīs
• His Education
• Ibn Idrīs as Teacher
• Ibn Idrīs as Heir to Ibn ʿArabī
• Ibn Idrīs’s Study of the Jurisprudential Sections of the Futūḥāt

Chapter 10: The Teachings and Influence of Aḥmad ibn Idrīs

• The Teachings of Ibn Idrīs on Ijtihād
• The Idrīsī Tradition and Beyond

Chapter 11: From Ibn ʿArabī to the Salafīs

• The Hijaz Revival
• Shah Walī-Allāh and the Indian Ahl-i Hadith Movement
• The Iraqi and Moroccan Revivalists
• The Damascene Salafiyya
• Maḥmūd Khaṭṭāb al-Subkī’s al-Jamʿiyya al-Sharʿiy

Conclusion

The Spirit of the Law: Competing Visions

Appendix: The Classical Juristic Debate on Whether or not Every Mujtahid Was Correct

Al-Ghazālī and Infallibilism

Ibn ʿArabī, Suyūṭī and Shaʿrānī