208 chapter five
should be distributed between the categories of expenditures. Over-
all the book shows that Abù-Ubaid’s thinking in finance is very
instructive.
The Contribution of Sùfìsm to Islamic Economic ThoughtDevelopment of the SùfìMovement
Whenever flùfìsm is mentioned, two names are the first to come to
mind: Rabi"a al-Adawiyyah of Basra, and al-Œallàj of Baghdad.
Rabi"a (d. 185/801) loved God for the sake of his love and chanted
her love to Him in the following most celebrated manner (transla-
tion by Nicholson, 1993):
Two ways I love Thee: selfishly,
And next, as worthy of Thee.
’Tis selfish love that I do naught
Save think on Thee with every thought;
’Tis purest love when Thou dost raise
The veil to my adoring gaze.
Not mine the praise in that or this:
Thine is the praise in both, I wis.Al-Œallàj (285–309 A.H., 898–922 A.C.) died on the cross in Baghdad
after a brief inquisition by the Traditional Ulama". He refused to
recant his belief or retract his claim that he and God were two in
one, “I am the Creative Truth”, ana al-Œaq, meaning God. Yet when
he saw the cross and the nails, he turned to the people and uttered
a prayer ending with the words, “... and these Thy servants who
are gathered to slay me, in zeal for Thy religion and in desire to
win Thy favour, forgive them O Lord, and have mercy on
them... (because they are ignorant of what you have revealed to
me)...Glory unto Thee in whatsoever Thou doest, and glory unto
Thee in whatsoever Thou will.” (Arberry, 1990).
But the crucifixion of al-Œallàj was almost two centuries after the
emergence of flùfìsm. flùfìsm started as the creed of some Muslims
who resented the exorbitant extravagance of lifestyle that was begin-
ning to make itself obvious from the Umayyads onward. The Islamic
state during the Umayyads, and more so during the Abbasids, wit-
nessed a wide expansion that took the borders as far away as India
in the east and the Iberian Peninsula in the west. With that came