Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Manipulation of Sufi Terms 107
of the privileged know no fear. The sentiment that was fear in its primi-
tive form, is transformed in awe (hayba).^37 Al-Qushayrī explains that
the servant struck by the most basic and primitive fear will try to hide
or escape, while a servant who shows anxiety seeks to overcome his
fear and will move towards God instead. Al-Qushayrī likens fear to
a candle that gives light to the heart and enables the servant to decide
what is good and what is evil. A person marked by terror will panic
and tries to escape. In khashya however is a flight to God, because the
worshipper enlightened by science knows in which way to act.^38 In
Sufi doctrine fear and hope are only stations that need to be developed
in stations or spiritual states of more grandeur. In a first movement
fear and hope will be transformed to constriction (qabḍ) and release
(basṭ). The advanced mystics are said to have arrived to the stations of
awe (hayba) and intimacy (uns). The spiritual development responds
to this model:
khawf → qabḍ → hayba
rajāʾ → basṭ → unsThe noblest form of fear is awe, that designates in Sufi handbooks the
remainder of the supreme quality of fear, and that is diffidence and
humble submission to God, that takes fear on a higher plan. Awe is
dismantled of the negative aspects that cling to fear. In this context, fear
cannot persist in spiritual progression because it is in the end replaced
by security. Awe however is a qualitatively nobler sentiment towards
God for the mystics that survives after death in the hereafter. Ibn
Qayyim al-Jawziyya accepts the co-existence of fear, anxiety and awe,
but he expresses his surprise about the statement that fear, a sensation
experienced by the prophets and the angels, would be reduced to a sta-
tion of the common and replaced by a qualification like awe (hayba), a
word that was never mentioned in the Koran. He does not deny the vir-
tuousness of awe, but challenges the idea that one abode should domi-
nate another in excellence. And in his desire to stay as close to Koranic
terminology as possible, Ibn al-Qayyim prefers to substitute the word
37 Al-Qāshānī, ʿAbd al-Razzāq: Laṭāʾif al-iʿlām, Cairo 1995, vol. 1, pp. 456–457.
Abū ʿAlī al-Daqāq was probably the first Sufi who classified degrees of fear on
the ascending scale of fear, anxiety (khashya) and awe (hayba). See al-Qushayrī,
Risāla fī ʿIlm al-taṣawwuf, p. 199; and al-Yāfiʿī, Nashr al-maḥāsin, vol. 1, p. 278.
38 Al-Qushayrī suggests even that there is a resemblance in the etymology of
terror (rahab) and flight (harab). Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, Risāla fī ʿIlm
al-taṣawwuf, p. 199.
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