Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Manipulation of Sufi Terms 103
esoteric knowledge had been given to unbelievers as well, and he points
out the fact that demonstrations of exceptional knowledge occurred
rarely in the first centuries of Islam, because of the first believers’ firm-
ness and solidity in faith.
On a conceptual level Sufi manuals divided the believers in three
groups; the common believers (ʿāmma), the privileged or the elite
(khāṣṣa) and the privileged of the privileged (khāṣṣat al-khāṣṣa). For
the authors who gave a monist interpretation of Sufi development the
spiritual development of the supreme elite leads to existential annihi-
lation, but for most mystics the ultimate goal of their spiritual jour-
ney was the mystical contemplation of God. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya
rejected this elitist sense of exclusion prevalent among some Sufis in his
work Ṭarīq al-hijratayn, where he discusses the deficiencies to some
abodes advanced by al-Anṣārī but also detracts the ideas of the Anda-
lusian mystic Ibn al-ʿArīf (d. 536/1141) who elaborated on al-Anṣārī’s
deficiencies in some abodes of the spiritual path.^24 Al-Anṣārī identified
a number of deficient abodes, that could in his understanding never
be applied to the privileged: will (irāda), renunciation (zuhd), reliance
(tawakkul), patience (ṣabr), grief (huzn), fear (khawf), hope (rajāʾ),
gratitude (shukr), love (maḥabba) and longing (shawq). Ibn al-ʿArīf
acknowledged that the Sufi manuals and al-Anṣārī’s Manāzil al-sāʾirīn
were written for different publics, who gather the information that is
specific for them. Therefore he decided to compose “The Attractions
of Mystical Sessions” (Maḥāsin al-majālis) as a work that addresses the
needs of the advanced wayfarer on the spiritual path. In his opinion
the stations and states that did not introduce love and unification were
vulgar, and not worthy to give attention to. He decided to devote all
his attention instead to the elite, and made it clear that the deficient
stations could not be of no interest to that same elite.^25 Ibn Qayyim
24 In an earlier stage of his life al-Anṣārī composed a short treatise on the defi-
ciencies, the ʿIlal al-maqāmāt. For the translated text see de Beaurecueil, Serge:
Les déficiences des demeures, in: ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī al-Harawī: Trois traités
spirituels, Paris 1985, pp. 233–237. See also de Beaurecueil, Serge: Un petit traité
de ʿAbdallāh al-Anṣārī sur les deficiences a certaines demeures spirituelles, in:
Dominique Sourdel (ed.): Mélanges Louis Massignon, Damascus 1957, vol. 1,
pp. 154–169.
25 In the introduction of the Maḥāsin al-majālis he made clear that the book serves
as a guidebook for the novice that helps him overcome the difficulties of the
path and at the same time as a work that reinforces the sincerity and realisation
of the murād. Ibn al-ʿArīf copied al-Anṣārī’s deficient stations and added two
more: repentance (tawba) and intimacy (uns). On the life of Ibn al-ʿArīf and
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