98 Gino Schallenbergh
“Abodes of the Wayfarers” contains hundred essential terms in
Sufi doctrine and spirituality in general (for a list of the abodes, see
appendix). The Manāzil al-sāʾirīn can be stations, spiritual states or
so-called halting posts on the road (mawāqif). Al-Anṣārī’s text pro-
poses a tripartition of the qualities described in the abodes whereby
for every abode an ascending classification is made of the common
believers, the privileged and the privileged of the privileged. Some of
the qualities described in the abodes are shared by the three groups
in their totality, while others are only of application to one particular
group. The development of the lower ranking groups can find ter-
mination in one of the hundred terms. Ibn al-Qayyim’s commentary
on the Manāzil gives an insight in Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s spiri-
tual ideas and is important for a number of reasons. First of all there
is Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s identification with and subsequent dis-
tancing from the author of the Manāzil al-sāʾirīn. He expressed on
numerous occasions his admiration for Shaykh al-Anṣārī (among
others for the latter’s strong condemnation of Ashʿarism in his
Dhamm al-kalām (Refutation of kalām)) but throughout his com-
mentary he criticises al-Harawī al-Anṣārī for the passages in the
Manāzil al-sāʾirīn that are written in an obscure language, a language
that in his opinion is unintelligible for the untrained reader and mis-
leading for the expert.^12 The ambiguity of some definitions of the
terms used by al-Anṣārī gave way to monist interpretations and Ibn
al-Qayyim betrays in some passages his suspicion that the author of
the Manāzil al-sāʾirīn himself made this choice deliberately, in which
case he warns, serious doubt must be cast on the ideological recti-
tude of al-Anṣārī. Throughout the Madārij al-sālikīn Ibn al-Qayyim
refuted on regular intervals parts of the commentary on the Manāzil
on the classification of the terms in the Manāzil al-sāʾirīn should be mentioned
here; de Beaurecueil, Serge: La structure du Livre des étapes de Khwaja Abdal-
lah Ansari, in: Mélanges de l’institut dominicain d’études orientales 11 (1972),
pp. 77–125; and de Beaurecueil, Serge: Le langage imagé du livre des étapes
de Khwāja Abdullah Anṣārī, mystique hanbalite du V-e/XI-e s., in: Bulletin
d’études orientales 30 (1978), pp. 32–44.
12 Ibn Taymiyya was less complacent with al-Harawī’s mystical writings and
blamed him for his lack of knowledge. For his critique on al-Harawī, see Ibn
Taymiyya, Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad: Minhāj al-sunna, ed. by M. Rashād Sālim, Cairo
1989, vol. 5, pp. 340–341. Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī noted that Ibn Taymiyya rejected
the Manāzil al-sāʾirīn despite his leaning to al-Anṣārī in other doctrinal matters.
Al-Subkī, Tāj al-Dīn ʿAlī: Ṭābaqāt al-shāfiʿiyya al-kubrā, ed. by ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ
al-Ḥilw and Maḥmūd al-Ṭanāḥī, Cairo 1992, vol. 4, p. 272.
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