reverberated in the teachings of thirteenth-century sages, who often expressed
their thought in poetry. The orders that developed in memory of these sages
practice spiritual exercises through which to traverse the stations of the path to
God. Many of these rituals incorporate practices of divine remembrance
(dhikr) combining meditation, music, and bodily movement, known as audi-
tion (sama).
Membership in these orders was central to Muslim communal life, and
often linked with guild participation. Associating them with those who
obey God as described in the Quranic verse 4:69, even the conservative
Hanbali scholar Taqi al-Din ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328) recognized Sufism
as
the science of realities and states of experience. The Sufiis that one who purifies
himself from everything which distracts him from the remembrance of God. [The
Sufi]issofilled with knowledge of the heart and knowledge of the mind that the
value of gold and stones will be equal to him. Sufism safeguards the precious
meanings and leaves behind the call to fame and vanity to reach the state of
truthfulness.^20
Opposition to Sufism could be complex. For example, the historian ibn
Khaldun (1332–1406) described Sufism as equivalent to the law in defining
Islam.^21 Yet he also issued a ruling (fatwa) condemning the writings of ibn
Arabi, one of its germinal theorists.^22
The tension between legalism and mysticism predates Islam. Sufism
reflects a Platonic approach oferos (‘ishq), while legalism espouses a
doctrine parallel with nomos. Established through Pythagorean and
Platonic thought, the idea oferosconsiders the soul as divine and therefore
as the human internalization of God. Redemption occurs through return to
the divine. In thenomostradition, the soul is created along with the body,
and does not have a preceding existence to which it can return.^23 The
opposition also reverberates with Zoroastrian opposition betweengetik,
the terrestrial, opaque, and heavy nature of creatures, andmenok, the
ethereal, transparent, and subtle one.^24 Thus the Hanbali scholar‘Abd al-
Rahman ibn al-Jawzi (1116–1201) derides Sufism:
Where is the association between the Creator and the created that can produce
affection, love, or yearning? What relation is there between mud and water, and
between the Creator of the heavens?...God has no quality towards which human
nature can incline or souls yearn. Rather, the complete dissimilarity between the(^20) Kabbani, 1995 : 19. (^21) Akkach,2005a: 18. (^22) Ahmad, 2000 :92–93.
(^23) Bell, 1979 : 201–202. (^24) Porter, 2000 : 113.
42 The Islamic Image