Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Manipulation of Sufi Terms 105
ward from any distraction. Hope constitutes an important incentive
to greater effort in worship.^30 The prospect of a good reward helps
the servant to overcome inactivity. Not unlike a child, al-Tilimsānī
states, that has been promised candy. In this sense hope alleviates the
burden of prescribed religious duties. Another soothing effect of hope
translates in the wish to join Paradise and its inhabitants. The hope
to find comfort with the ḥūrīs (paradise women) in paradise protects
the itinerant from the Satan’s entrapments (maṣāʾid al-shayṭān). His
soul is filled with expectant joy when he contemplates the rewards he
will receive at the end of his journey.^31 A worshipper known for good
works lives with the hope that his works may be accepted, inveterate
sinners hope that their sins may be forgiven. Al-Qushayrī makes the
observation that it is preferable for the sinner to entertain feelings of
fear, rather than hope.^32 In some cases the sensation was classified as a
spiritual state rather than a station. Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj (d. 378/988) for
example classifies fear as a spiritual state. In proximity to God (qurb),
he explains, two spiritual states prevail. In some cases the state of love
is dominant, in other cases fear overpowers. God allocates these states
to the worshippers guided by His infinite wisdom. When He mani-
fests to the worshipper His power and almightiness He inspires fear.
When He shows His generosity and infinite bounty He inspires love.^33
Fear also manifests itself as a physical ailment in the description of the
spiritual life of the worshipper. The Yemenite Sufi ʿAbd Allāh b. Asʿad
al-Yāfīʿī (d. 768/1367) said that fear originates in the liver. It is a sensa-
tion that affects and burns the liver, an organ that is in Galen’s anatomy
the location from where the veins depart (aṣl al-ʿurūq).^34 In Abū Ṭālib
al-Makkī’s (d. 437/1045) discussion of fear, the sensation can be caused
by seven physical dysfunctions depending from its source in the human
30 Al-Tilimsānī, Sharḥ manāzil al-sāʾirīn, folio 26.
31 Ibn al-Qayyim, Madārij al-sālikīn, vol. 2, p. 55.
32 Al-Qushayrī, Risāla fī ʿIlm al-taṣawwuf, pp. 204–205.
33 Al-Sarrāj, ʿAbd Allāh Abū Naṣr: Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, ed. by Reynold A. Nicholson,
Leiden 1914, pp. 60–61.
34 On Galen’s theory on the venal system see the translation by Ḥunayn Ibn Isḥāq
(d. 260/873) in Muḥammad S. Sālim (ed.): al-Ṣināʿa al-ṣaghīra, Cairo 1988,
p. 167; and on the functions of the liver in general see Rodinson, Maxim: Kabid,
in: EI^2 , vol. 4 (1978), pp. 327–333. Al-Yāfiʿī adds that Abū Bakr was so God-
fearing that his breath exuded the scent of roast liver; al-Yāfiʿī, ʿAbd Allāh b.
Asʿad: Nashr al-maḥāsin al-ghāliya fī faḍl mashāyikh al-maqāmāt al-ʿāliya, ed.
by Aḥmad Saʿdī, Cairo 2004, vol. 1, p. 281.
Brought to you by | Nanyang Technological University
Authenticated