Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Manipulation of Sufi Terms 111
him forgetful of the discomfort it causes, although its occasion is rare.
In these cases, he explains, intense love for God has overpowered the
heart. Afterwards he will return to a natural state and witness pain like
anybody else.^47 Al-Tilimsānī on the other hand agrees that the wor-
shipper can very well exist in the conviction that he has more to gain
in the pain of separation, sensing that unification is only a pleasure to
the carnal soul.^48 To this group belong the mystics who call for the pain
of punishment rather than the bliss of paradise. Al-Qāshānī illustrates
this sentiment with the verses:^49
Being tortured in parting
is dearer to me than communion’s sweetness
Because in communion I am a servant to the pleasure [of my carnal soul]
and in my parting I am the servant of the Lord.
taʿdhībī maʿa al-hijrāni ʿindī
aḥabbu ilayya min ṭībi al-wiṣāl
li-annī fī al-wiṣāli ʿabdu ḥazzin
wa-fī al-hijrāni ʿabdu al-mawlāMonists and some mainstream Sufis were equally opposed to the abode
of hope, with regard to the advanced Sufi. Hope (rajāʾ), al-Anṣārī
explained in the ʿIlal al-maqāmāt, is the aspiration for something out
of reach or the wish to find something lost. It occults the real objective
of the spiritual journey.^50 Even in its highest degrees, hope holds for
them a great degree of imperfection. Al-Niffarī said on the subject of
fear and hope: “Fear is the sign of him who knows his end. Hope is the
sign of him who is ignorant of his end.”^51 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya is
perceptive of this reality and condemns al-Anṣārī in his commentary
of the first lines on this chapter.^52 The interpretation that al-Tilimsānī
attaches to the text is diametrically opposed to Ibn al-Qayyim’s. In
al-Tilimsānī’s outlook on spirituality, hope is one of the weakest sta-
47 Ibn al-Qayyim, Ṭarīq al-hijratayn, pp. 306–307.
48 Al-Tilimsānī, Sharḥ manāzil al-sāʾirīn, folio 26b.
49 Al-Qāshānī, Laṭāʾif al-iʿlām, vol. 1, p. 483.
50 Al-Anṣārī al-Harawī, Trois traités spirituels, pp. 235–236.
51 Al-Niffarī, Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh: Kitāb al-Mawāqif, ed. by Arthur J. Arber-
ry, London 1935, p. 51. This is so, al-Tilimsānī explains, because the hope-
ful is overpowered by the prospect of felicity. Al-Tilimsānī, Sharḥ mawāqif
al-Niffarī, p. 328.
52 “The shaykh al-islām is very dear to us”, he starts, “but dearer still is the truth,”
Ibn al-Qayyim, Madārij al-sālikīn, vol. 2, p. 38.
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