T. O’Shaughnessy, Muhammad’s Thoughts on Death: A
Thematic Study of the Quranic Data (Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1969); Jane I. Smith and Yvonne Haddad, The Islamic
Understanding of Death and Resurrection (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1981).
Junayd, Abu al-Qasim ibn Muhammad
ibn al-Junayd al-Khazzaz al-Qawariri al-
(unknown–910) leading Sufi master of Baghdad
whose “sober” understanding of mystical experience
won acceptance among conservative Sunni scholars
Al-Junayd was from the city of baghdad during
the age of the abbasid caliphate. Although his
writings are available today only in the form of
letters and short treatises, he was often mentioned
and quoted in the works of other Sufis. He had
some knowledge of the legal sciences and it is
reported that he was also respected by philoso-
phers and theologians. The high regard in which
he was held is indicated by the titles given to him
by later writers: the Sayyid of the Religious Group
and Supreme Shaykh. His uncle was another
famous Sufi, Sari al-Saqati (d. ca. 867), a pious
merchant who spoke of the mutual love between
humans and God and of the spiritual stages on the
way to God.
Scholars have commented on the difficulties
posed by al-Junayd’s work in terms of his obscure
writing style, but they recognize that he was one
of the first to speak about the challenges faced
by Sufis in adhering to a life of asceticism and
devotion to God. He is also remembered for his
explanation of the relation between baqa (abiding
in God) and fana (annihilation in God). Instead of
accepting the idea that annihilation was the end
of self-existence, in contrast to the “intoxicated”
Sufis, he stated that by God’s grace, “My anni-
hilation is my abiding,” and continued to state
paradoxically that God “annihilated me from both
my abiding and my annihilation” (quoted in Sells
254). Because al-Junayd’s thoughts about ecstasy
and annihilation were considered moderate when
compared with those of the “intoxicated” Sufis,
Sufi tradition placed him in the forefront of the
“sober” Sufis. He taught that annihilation had
three stages: (1) containing the lower self through
the performance of self-less actions; (2) cutting
oneself off from “the sweet desserts and pleasures
of obedience;” and (3) attaining true existence in
God by annihilation through ecstasy. His under-
standing of the nature of affirming God’s unity
(tawhid) was also an important aspect of his
spiritual teachings. Al-Junayd held that this affir-
mation had four forms: (1) proclamation by the
common people that God was one; (2) fulfilling
the duties of worship and following the sharia by
the common people; (3) abolition of hopes and
fears by the elect so as to allow them to experience
perfect harmony in witnessing the reality of God;
and (4) return of the elect to the original state of
preexistence “as one was before one was,” without
outside attachments.
Mansur al-hallaJ (d. 922) was one of al-
Junayd’s most famous disciples, but al-Junayd
eventually rejected him because of controversial
utterances he made while in spiritual ecstasy. His
biographers say that al-Junayd made the pilgrim-
age to mecca 30 times and that he died reciting
the Quran. His tomb was located in western Bagh-
dad, near those of his uncle Sari al-Saqati and the
famous hadith scholar and jurist Ahmad ibn han-
bal (d. 855). Many Sufi tariqas (spiritual orders)
subsequently included al-Junayd in the genealo-
gies of spiritual masters that disciples must mem-
orize when they are initiated into them.
See also allah; asceticism; baqa and fana;
bistami, abU yazid al-; covenant; soUl and spirit;
sUFism; tariqa.Further reading: Christopher Melchert, “The Transi-
tion from Asceticism to Mysticism at the Middle of the
Ninth Century c.e.,” Studia Islamica 83 (1996): 51–70;
Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975);
Michael Sells, Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Quran,
Miraj, Poetic, and Theological Writings (Mahwah, N.J.:
Paulist Press, 1996), 251–265.Junayd, Abu al-Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn al-Junayd al-Khazzaz al-Qawariri al- 415 J